It’s easy to be snide about TGL, the made-for-TV indoor golf competition created by Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and former Golf Channel executive Mike McCarley. TGL, which premiered on ESPN on Jan. 7, pits pro golfers against each other in two teams of three inside a custom-built golf simulator/pitch-and-putt arena in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. (They planned originally to play in an inflatable dome on the same site, but its roof collapsed during construction, delaying the league’s debut by a year.) Just trying to describe the first match, as seen on TV, feels vaguely ridiculous.
“This is the epicenter of the game of golf as it is reimagined in a way that feels just right for 2025,” ESPN anchor Scott Van Pelt declared at the top of the telecast. The in-house DJ played Jay-Z’s Empire State of Mind during introductions for the New York Golf Club, whose threesome of Matt Fitzpatrick, Rickie Fowler and Xander Schauffele hail from England, California and California, respectively. The Bay Golf Club’s Shane Lowry (Ireland), Wyndham Clark (Colorado) and Ludvig Åberg (Sweden) walked out to Lil Jon’s Snap Yo Fingers, for some reason. If Steve Buscemi had come out next in a red hoodie with a skateboard over his shoulder, it would not have felt more like watching a parade of “How do you do, fellow kids?” memes.
