The brainchild of McIlroy and Tiger Woods, TGL – or the Tomorrow’s Golf League – will begin on January 7 at the purpose-built SIFI Centre at Palm Beach State College, a 97-yard x 50-yard “field of play” where players will hit long shots at a giant 64 x 53ft screen (simulator) but pitch, chip and putt in a 22,475-square-foot short-game area that transforms between holes.
The opening match of the tech-infused league will see New York Golf Club – featuring Matt Fitzpatrick, Rickie Fowler, Xander Schauffele and Cameron Young – take on The Bay Golf Club’s quartet of Shane Lowry, Ludvig Aberg, Wyndham Clark and Min Woo Lee.
McIlroy’s Boston Common Golf side (McIlroy, Hideki Matsuyama, Keegan Bradley and Adam Scott) will not tee it up until January 27, when fans will be hoping to see a showdown between the Holywood star and Woods, who is the skipper of a Jupiter Links GC outfit that also features Max Homa, Kevin Kisner and Tom Kim.
McIlroy sees TGL as a potential rival to LIV Golf but when asked about the relative novelty of team golf given that the Saudi-backed LIV Golf league didn’t start until 2022, he couldn’t resist referencing the decision to pay the US Ryder Cup side to tee it up at Bethpage next year.
“Yeah, absolutely,” McIlroy said when asked if TGL could rival LIV given that each team is affiliated with a big city.
“You go back to the Ryder Cup. Team golf has been around since 1927 in the professional game.”
When it was pointed out to McIlroy that the likes of Walter Hagen and Ted Ray weren’t paid to play in 1927, McIlroy quipped: “Some of us still don’t get paid!”
Joking aside, the world No 3 is hoping his Boston Common side will gain momentum among hardcore Boston sports fans, which is why they’ve spent the last year filming a new five-part docuseries, unCOMMON: Building a Boston Sports Team, which has been following McIlroy and his teammates behind the scenes for the past 12 months.
The series, which was produced by Fenway Sports Group and NBC’s GolfPass, is a Netflix-style product that catalogues a difficult first year for TGL, which saw the league postponed for 12 months following the collapse of the original venue in Florida after a storm, to the loss of original Boston teammate Tyrrell Hatton to LIV and his replacement by Masters winner Matsuyama.
“Obviously, there’s been a few ups and downs with the TGL journey to get to this point,” McIlroy said of the new league. “But I’m on the record saying that it has been a blessing in disguise.”
The delay has given the backers the chance to rethink the venue, which not only features huge screens but also combines artificial turf with “real Bermuda grass for the fairways, real Bermuda rough” and the same sand Augusta uses in its bunkers.
“It was certainly a ‘wow’ feeling, walking in there, and just even I think how big the arena is,” McIlroy said of the venue. “And I think one of my first thoughts walking in was, like, wow, the delay was like a blessing in disguise because it wouldn’t have looked the way it had if it hadn’t been for that.
“So I think it was a bit of a silver lining that that happened. It gave everyone more time to dial things in, make the arena a little bit better. So I think everyone that went into the SoFi Centre has been overwhelmed by just how cool the place is.
“Once you get within 40 yards of the green, then you transition to the green zone where all of that is artificial turf. But I still feel like the ball reacts very realistically on the green.”
McIlroy insists it’s not a gimmick exhibition but something that will be highly competitive.
“Look, we’re all competitors at the end of the day,” he said. “We want to win. And even going back to the Showdown on Tuesday night, we’re trying to provide entertainment for people.”
Given the size of the project and the pressure to give celebrity investors and fans some bang for their buck, McIlroy admits he’s “nervous”.
“I get nervous all the time, especially when it’s something that you really care about,” he said. “I was nervous on Tuesday night before starting. I get nervous quite a bit.”
