Tiger & Rory's New Golf League
The idea is simple: Get some of the world’s best golfers together in a super-high-tech, one-of-a-kind arena setting, bring in fans to watch it live, have all the players mic’d up, lure a worldwide television audience to watch it all happen live, offer betting on just about everything and play an entire round of team golf in two hours.
This is TGL and come January, it will be ready for golf fans to watch.
The games will take place on Monday or Tuesday nights, in prime time, via a league composed of six different four-man teams, all played at the SoFi Center on the campus of Palm Beach State College in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida—not far from PGA National. TGL has plenty of big-name commitments from the PGA Tour: Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, reigning PGA champion Xander Schauffele, Justin Thomas, Rickie Fowler, Collin Morikawa, Wyndham Clark and more.
TGL (some have said it stands for “Tomorrow’s Golf League,” but league organizers say the letters don’t officially stand for anything) is the brainchild of TMRW Sports, pronounced “tomorrow.” The company was cofounded in August 2022 by Woods, McIlroy and former NBC Sports executive Mike McCarley, who is chief executive officer. One could envision this venture as an alternative to LIV, bringing a new, fun and quick way for PGA Tour fans to enjoy the game of golf.
“There has always been a need for both team golf and something complementary to the PGA Tour that is focused on an alternative, fun, but authentic form of our sport,” Woods says. “When Mike came to me with the basic concept of TGL, it was obvious to me that the format, the way we harness and mix technology with actual golf, and how we embrace new ways to engage our core audience while attracting those new to the game, TGL is going to be successful.”
So far, so good. It could be argued that TGL is already a success without a single shot being struck. There is obvious excitement around the game for TGL, which should fit perfectly into the schedules of most golfers. Pro golf tournaments end on Sundays, for the most part. TGL matches will routinely be on Mondays or Tuesdays. Not every team will play every week, and the season takes place during the Florida swing of the PGA Tour, which will make getting to Palm Beach Gardens convenient for players. Many of them make homes in the immediate area.
TGL is not like regular golf, spread across acres and acres of space. Matches are contained in an indoor stadium and involve a mixture of the real and virtual. Tee shots and longer shots are played on a massive golf simulator that’s basically the size of an IMAX movie screen. The space is a few yards shy of matching the dimensions of a football field, and even though it’s all happening indoors, the grass and sand that players will play from will both be real. For short-game shots, players will move to what TGL calls the GreenZone, a 22,475-square-foot complex with three bunkers and a 3,800 square-foot green, but it’s unlike any green on a golf course. It sits atop a 41-yard-wide turntable, with enough machinery underneath it to change the slope of the surface in every way imaginable. To put it another way: This won’t be some sort of mini-golf, putt-putt piece of green carpet. The best players in the world will be tested.
Teams will play a 15-hole match, broken into two parts. For the first nine holes, it will be 3-on-3, alternate-shot. For the last six holes, it’ll be singles play, each player competing for two holes. Win the hole, get a point, and the most points wins. Simple. There’s a $21 million prize pool for the season, with $9 million going to the TGL champions. The full schedule hasn’t been released, but the season will presumably wrap up in March—before the Masters—and before the weather starts getting nice in much of the country.
“More and more people are playing and experiencing golf. TGL will create a perfect new option for fans new to the game, but I believe that our core fans will love the technology showcased, hearing strategy from mic’d up teammates and seeing every shot of the competition,” Clark says. “There is so much momentum building with the strength of the ownership groups, the broadcast on ESPN and a great sponsor in SoFi. I can’t wait for January to get here.”
Woods will play for Jupiter Links Golf Club alongside Max Homa, Tom Kim, and Kevin Kisner. McIlroy, Keegan Bradley and Adam Scott are confirmed for Boston Common Golf, with one player still to be added. The New York Golf Club features Schauffele, Fowler, Matt Fitzpatrick and Cameron Young. Thomas, Patrick Cantlay, Billy Horschel, and Lucas Glover will play for Atlanta Drive GC. Morikawa is part of the Los Angeles Golf Club team, along with Tommy Fleetwood, Sahith Theegala and Justin Rose. And Clark is playing for The Bay Golf Club, with Ludvig Åberg, Min Woo Lee and Shane Lowry as his teammates.
“TGL is becoming a hot topic of conversation on the range and around the locker room,” Schauffele says. “It’s full of PGA Tour stars.”
The players have more than 200 wins, 30 majors and $850 million in combined PGA Tour earnings to their names. They are globally known. The first three matches, January 7, 14 and 21, are scheduled to air in prime time on ESPN and will be promoted during the network’s coverage of the NFL playoffs and the College Football Playoffs. (TGL is meant to be played on Monday nights, but the first three matches will actually be held on Tuesdays, to avoid competing with football games.)
The franchise fee for each club was $50 million, and the ownership groups are also big names. Jupiter Links is owned by Woods and David Blitzer, a managing partner of the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers and NHL’s New Jersey Devils. Blitzer is into everything; he has stakes in the NFL’s Washington Commanders, NASCAR’s Joe Gibbs Racing team and Major League Baseball’s Cleveland Guardians, is general partner of Crystal Palace of the English Premier League, and owns a slew of other clubs including Real Salt Lake of Major League Soccer.
Serena Williams, along with her Reddit cofounder husband Alexis Ohanian and her sister Venus Williams, own the Los Angeles club. New York Mets owner Steve Cohen owns New York Golf Club. Home Depot cofounder Arthur Blank, the owner of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, Major League Soccer’s Atlanta United and PGA Tour Superstores, owns Atlanta Drive GC. The powerhouse Fenway Sports Group—led by John Henry and Tom Werner, with LeBron James among its investors—owns the Boston Common club, adding that to an ownership portfolio that includes the Boston Red Sox, Pittsburgh Penguins, English soccer power Liverpool and iconic Fenway Park. And The Bay Golf Club’s ownership is led by Marc Lasry and Golden State Warriors star Steph Curry, along with Klay Thompson and Andre Iguodala.
“We see this as an investment to grow the game, deliver an innovative product to avid fans while exposing golf to new, younger audiences, and another way for us to compete for championships for Atlanta,” Blank says. “This new format will allow us to bring golf to our fans in a different way, taking advantage of the greatest technology that’s available today with some of the best players in the game. I look forward to January as we unveil this compelling product and kick off the inaugural TGL season.”
“The attraction is really simple,” Lasry said to CNBC after buying in last year. “What we’re trying to do is make golf available to people to watch over two hours. Do it in prime time, do it where it’s virtual so you’re going to see the players hitting the ball right away and then they step up. You’re not watching people walk. I think one of the problems that people have with golf, unless you’re a huge golf fan, is that it takes too long.”
And maybe, just maybe, TGL will bring some younger people to the game. In a world where attention spans seem to be dwindling, where texts have replaced conversation and emojis can replace words, count McIlroy among those who are hoping the bells and whistles of TGL make golf cooler for a new generation.
“That’s the future of our game, trying to get the younger generations involved and trying to have them somehow relate to our game in some way,” McIlroy says. “Just a different demographic, trying to put golf on a slightly different platform. And, you know, if we can increase the interest in the game for a younger demographic, hopefully golf doesn’t look like what we are doing in TGL 50 years from now—because it is a game to be played outdoors and on golf courses and in the fresh air. But I think there’s a place for it to maybe get people excited about watching a different version of the game that they can relate to, and I guess if that gets their foot in the door in some way, that’s a really good thing.”
It’s also no accident that Monday Night Football will basically be done when Monday Night Golf rolls around. Going up against regular-season NBA, NHL or college basketball is one thing. TGL will get promoted during football broadcasts, not take them on.
“The idea is ‘When are fans available to watch? When is there low competition from other sports? ’” McCarley says. “HUT levels, which is a television term which is for ‘homes using television’ are highest in those winter months, January, February. Fans are home, days are shorter, it’s night earlier, it’s cold outside for some people, certain parts of the country are snowed in. There’s just a lot of opportunity when you look at the media landscape, especially the sports media landscape. Then you look at when are golfers available, what makes the most sense from a business standpoint for television and what makes the most sense in the calendar of a golfer’s life.”
The original plan called for TGL to launch in January 2024, but it was pushed back a year. TGL was to be played in a dome, and construction was well underway in November 2023 when the facility deflated because of a failure of power systems. Nobody was hurt and most of the technology wasn’t impacted, but it quickly became clear that TGL was going to be delayed. Everyone involved—the players, the PGA Tour, ESPN, commercial partners and more—took a look at both the construction and sports calendars and felt January 2025 became the new logical target. Plans were revised, the dome was done and a permanent steel-ed facility was drawn up instead. A longer land lease was struck as well, with TGL going from a 15-year plan to a 20-year one.
“We were on track for 2024, but with the extra time, we’ve been able to highlight our team brands, our strong ownership groups and now we have an incredible opportunity to spend the next few months educating fans on competition elements of TGL,” says Woods. “I can tell you that more players from TGL are texting, calling and reaching out with their excitement about the league.”
Another form of excitement is going to come from betting, which will be a big piece of TGL. The wagering won’t be only for people with s at various sportsbooks, but for the players as well.
“Wagering is part of our sport, part of our culture,” Woods said at the groundbreaking ceremony at Palm Beach State in February 2023. “We don’t know how to play golf without it.”
The possibilities for betting are endless and obviously go well beyond the “who wins” wager. TMRW Sports’ basic premise is to be a high-tech company with a high-tech approach, and SoFi Center will have every gadget and gizmo imaginable to measure data and share it in real time. Imagine the possibilities: Bettors could potentially wager on ball speed, distance and carry on almost every shot.
“It starts out with the simple fact that there’s an abundance of data on every single ball that’s struck,” McCarley says. “You start there, and then go to every single shot will be seen live and every single ball that’s struck is going to be hit by a big-name player. There’s going to be a lot happening just because of the technology involved and the format, and the in-arena experience that’s being created that allows for more data. The more data that exists, the more opportunities there are for fans to engage with that data. It’s our job to make that data available and make the shots available live to television audiences all around the world.”
In the United States, that audience will be tuning in via ESPN. Globally, other deals have already been struck: Fox Sports in Australia, the streaming platform U-NEXT in Japan, and JTBC/Phoenix Sports International in South Korea. More are coming. It’s not a coincidence that TGL has signed golfers from not just the United States but from most corners of the globe.
“While I was watching the PGA Championship, I couldn’t help but notice the various players who will be competing in TGL on the leaderboard including, of course, Xander Schauffele,” says Rosalyn Durant, ESPN’s executive vice president of programming and acquisitions. “There is a good buzz at ESPN about TGL. It’s going to be a fantastic complement to our PGA Tour and golf majors schedule.”
It’s also going to give fans more chances to see Woods play, which is never a bad thing for ratings and interest. Plus, even though these teams aren’t aligned by nationality, anyone who has watched Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup matches can understand how the team aspect of what traditionally is an individual sport stirs something different within competitors.
They will talk smack. They will high five. They will fist pump. It’s just going to be a different energy, and it’s hard to envision that being anything but great for golf. Those who watch golf on weekends might be compelled to tune in on Monday or Tuesday nights now. Those who will watch TGL matches and get lured into the tech aspects might find themselves watching more golf on weekends. And don’t be surprised if the data-driven elements that emerge as popular parts of TGL broadcasts make their way into conventional golf coverage.
“Team golf is so rare for the top guys on the PGA Tour,” Woods says. “This opportunity gives us an incredible opportunity to play alongside each other, establish that team mentality, create opportunities for fans to follow players and teams, which is great for everyone. With the ownership groups involved, these are established owners in every major sport. They know how to build teams. I know, for me, personally, I love the talent and personality of Max, Tom and Kiz [Kevin Kisner] and can’t wait to compete with them.”
There will be no shortage of metrics to determine if TGL is a success. The biggest one, of course, will almost certainly be the ratings. With a big-time golf headliner—probably many of them—certain to play every week, people are quite likely to watch. Rehearsal matches to make sure all the data works, the technology is right and the television elements are locked in will start this fall. And on January 7, TGL goes live.
“I think the most important thing is that we are maniacally focused on Season 1,” McCarley says. “That’s first and foremost, delivering a compelling product that the fans love. Not everyone’s going to love everything about it, but the idea is we’re giving something to fans they’ve never seen before, giving them a chance to experience these world-class PGA Tour players in an environment and in a way that they’ve never been able to really experience. It’s in prime time on ESPN, in a two-hour window with every shot being live, it just gives us an opportunity to introduce the game to some new fans, younger fans, more tech-savvy fans and ultimately a more diverse group of fans.”
