TGL, the indoor team golf league backed by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, has announced its full schedule. The six-team league, featuring 20 PGA Tour players, will debut on ESPN in early January in the middle of the NFL playoffs and will run weekly through the end of March.
Competition begins on Tuesday evening with team golf competitions lasting approximately two hours. The matches will be played at the SoFi Center, a Palm Beach Gardens facility purpose-built to house the high-tech golf simulator, screen and greens as well as approximately 1,500 live fans, in seats and suites.
The season will include 15 regular season games, a four-team playoff and a two-team best-of-three championship. Each match consists of 15 holes: nine team play, six singles match play.
TGL’s gameplay involves a combination of screen technology for “drives” and an actual, customizable green for approaches and putting. TGL’s designers have created 30 holes and will use 15 for each match.
The six teams are affiliated with different cities and are owned by various owners and ownership groups from other sports, such as Steve Cohen of the Mets, the Falcons’ Arthur Blank, the Red Sox’ Fenway Sports Group and others.
The competition kicks off on Tuesday, January 7 with New York Golf Club (Matt Fitzpatrick, Rickie Fowler, Xander Schauffele and Cameron Young) versus Bay Golf Club (Ludvig Åberg, Wyndham Clark, Min Woo Lee and Shane Lowry). On January 14, Jupiter Links Golf Club (Woods, Max Homa, Tom Kim and Kevin Kisner) will play Los Angeles Golf Club (Collin Morikawa, Sahith Theegala, Tommy Fleetwood and Justin Rose). Later in the season, Atlanta Drive GC (Justin Thomas, Patrick Cantlay, Billy Horschel and Lucas Glover) and Boston Common GC (McIlroy, Keegan Bradley, Adam Scott and Hideki Matsuyama) will debut.
McIlroy and Woods, through their joint venture TMRW Sports, first announced the competition in August 2022, at the most bitter point in the rift between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf. The hallmark of LIV Golf is team golf, and outside of the Ryder Cup and certain match play events, there is no substantial team golf component to PGA Tour golf.
TGL has a fully fleshed out web and social presence, along with explanatory videos and merchandise, designed to create immediate brand alignment based on fans’ connection to both specific players and “host cities.” The league was previously scheduled to begin play in 2024, but a storm damaged the facility and forced a one-year postponement.
The league’s playoffs run through the end of March, ending just weeks before the Masters and the start of the big golf season.
