Get ready for Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s revolutionary golf venture, with the TGL Golf league’s start date announced in what will be a completely new direction for the sport professionally.
Many avid golf players or fans may have played at simulated indoor golf ranges from time to time. Now some of the PGA Tour’s most influential people want to take that to a whole new level and broadcast it around the world.
The TGL competition (Tomorrow’s Golf League) is what superstar golfers Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy have created. A simulated league played live in front of crowds and broadcasted on ESPN, it will see some of the PGA’s best go head to head on a simulated golf course like no other.
Players will hit off the real surfaces their ball lays on in the simulation – fairway grass, rough, and sand – until they reach the green. From there, they’ll play off a physical custom-built GreenZone that rotates between each hole to change the approach and can morph its topography using nearly 600 actuators.
The TGL was initially meant to start in 2024 but was forced to postpone after the roof on their custom-built facility collapsed. With renovations on their venue already completed, the competition is scheduled to start in 2025.
Everything you need to know about the TGL | All the details
What is the TGL Golf League?
A simulated professional golf competition
When the TGL Golf League hits global screens it will be one of the most revolutionary moments in professional golfing history, as the sport shifts towards indoor settings.
Contested within a custom-built venue in Floria, the TGL is a simulated golf competition pitting the PGA Tour’s best golfers against each other in both head-to-head and 3v3 rounds.
TGL has come to life due to TMRW Sports – pronounced ‘tomorrow’ – a technology company ‘harnessing technology to build progressive approaches in sports media and entertainment’. It was created by a trio of golf’s most influential figures — Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, and sports media executive Mike McCarley.
With players hitting balls into a giant screen that tracks the ball and a revolving and morphing physical green that the golfers will also play on, it’s fair to say the basis for starting this league is to use technology to advance golf.
When does the TGL start?
January 2025
Early reports suggest that the TGL will debut on January 7, 2025, in primetime on ESPN, who have exclusive rights to the competition.
The league will occur across three consecutive Fridays, beginning on January 7 and running through to Friday, January 21. Golf Australia report the competition’s organisers feel this slot will allow TGL to benefit from promotion during ESPN’s coverage of the NFL and college football playoffs.
For Australians, these TGL events will most likely begin at midday on the relevant Saturdays, at a similar time to when NBA games are broadcasted.
What is the gameplay going to look like?
There will be two different formats played in the TGL, the first being a 3v3 team setup, which consists of six teams representing six cities around the United States — San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, New York, Boston, and surprisingly Jupiter, Florida.
For ‘triples’, they will go head to head in a nine-hole alternate shot format, culminating in playoffs and eventually a championship.
The other format is ‘singles’, which is six holes of golfers going head to head. As in the ‘triples’ format, each hole in ‘singles’ is worth one point. If the scores are tied at the end of the allocated amount of holes, extra holes will be added until a winner is determined.
How does the TGL work?
Let’s start from the beginning and get the basics straight. The TGL is almost completely a virtual competition where each golfer hits balls into a giant screen that simulates where that ball would’ve gone if it was real.
Each team or individual will tee up their ball in front of the screen on a real grass tee box. Along this mat that the golfers hit off, there are real conditions to play off — fairway grass for when the ball lands there, rough grass for those wayward shots, and sand for shots that land in the bunker.
Players and teams will hit balls into the screen until they have landed on or within 50 yards of the green. From there, they will play off a physical green placed right behind where they’ve been hitting.
The GreenZone, as TGL calls it, is a custom-built area that players can stand on, unlike the virtual screenplay they have just done to reach the green.
This ‘GreenZone’ isn’t like your normal green, with technology able to change the approach to the green by rotating, as it is built on top of a mechanism capable of turning it. It can also morph the undulation on the greens using topography and actuators embedded beneath the putting surface.
The entire gameplay is revolutionary, creating yet another format in the ever-entertaining and changing landscape of world golf.