By Andrew Beaton [Video courtesy Full Swing Golf]
Tuesday night, a collection of the best golfers in the world will assemble for a brand new, high-stakes competition. But they won’t be pulling up to the first tee box at one of the sport’s most prestigious courses.
In fact, they won’t even be outdoors.
Instead, this group of major champions and top-10 players are betting that fans are ready to take a chance on golf like they have never seen it before—played against a giant computer screen.
The launch of TGL, a new golf league co-founded by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy in partnership with the PGA Tour, marks a foray into uncharted territory for professional golf. It’s a team competition that combines simulator golf, where players hit balls into an enormous screen, with live action as players finish every hole by playing around a real green complex.
If that sounds like a concept goofy enough that the roof could cave in at any moment, well, that already happened. TGL’s debut was pushed back by a year after damage to the roof at the indoor venue in Palm Beach, Fla.
Its belated arrival comes at a time of rapid upheaval in the sport, and when alternative versions of the game have become increasingly appealing and accessible to everyday players. These days, more Americans than ever are playing on simulators—and that’s particularly true for young people and women. In fact, there were more off-course golf participants (32.9 million) than on-course ones (26.6 million) in 2023, according to the National Golf Foundation.
Which is why everyone from billionaire investors to the game’s best golfers sense an opportunity to experiment with a new format that seeks to attract both fanatics and people who are less inclined to play—or this in case watch—the traditional version of the sport that can take all day.
“We’re trying to bring a new demographic to this game of golf,” Woods said recently. “It’s going to be unbelievable on TV. I hope that we can invigorate the game because it definitely needs it right now.”
That’s the plan, at least. What the coming weeks will determine is whether that enthusiasm is shared by fans who actually tune in.
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