Indoor golf league created by Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy has loud, swift debut match

Tim Reynolds · The Associated Press

· Posted: Jan 08, 2025 10:47 AM EST | Last Updated: January 8

Ludvig Aberg volition beryllium the reply to a trivia question: He made the archetypal birdie successful TGL history.

And with that, the indoor play contention that Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy had envisioned for years was yet underway.

TGL had its debut lucifer Tuesday night, with Rickie Fowler, Matt Fitzpatrick and Xander Schauffele of New York Golf Club taking connected Shane Lowry, Wyndham Clark and Aberg of The Bay Golf Club successful the opener astatine the SoFi Center successful Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

The 15-hole lucifer took conscionable nether 2 hours, which is precisely however TGL envisioned this to work. Final score: The Bay 9, New York 2.

"The past clip I've had that overmuch amusive was astir apt past September," Lowry said, turning toward Clark arsenic helium said that — the evident notation being however helium and Aberg were portion of the European Ryder Cup squad that bushed Clark and the United States successful the autumn of 2023.

Yes, trash speech is portion of TGL arsenic well, adjacent among teammates.

"Look, I had an astonishing 2 hours," Lowry said.

Lowry struck the archetypal changeable astatine 9:15 p.m. ET. Four minutes later, the archetypal spread successful TGL past was implicit erstwhile Aberg rolled successful a nine-footer for the archetypal constituent successful league play. Yes, it moves that quickly.

"This was conscionable a imagination conjured up," Woods said connected the ESPN broadcast. "Rory and I were talking astir it; it's hard to judge that imagination came into world and we were capable to instrumentality play into different stratosphere, really."

Data collected disconnected each shot

Woods and McIlroy, portion of the encephalon spot that enactment unneurotic this venture, were there, arsenic expected. DJ Khaled was determination too, milling astir portion players were warming up, showing disconnected his plaything with an imaginary club.

The venue is simply a 250,000-square-foot installation astatine Palm Beach State College. Players deed immoderate shots into a video screen, immoderate disconnected existent grass, immoderate disconnected turf, and the bunkers are not conscionable existent soil -- it's soil from Augusta National Golf Club, the aforesaid soil Woods has astatine his location signifier facility. It's super-high tech, with information collected disconnected each shot.

"Nobody had much amusive than us," Clark said.

Players wore microphones, determination were betting options and fans surrounded the "course" successful an intimate arena wherever euphony blared, and sound was welcomed.

"A glorified antheral cave successful a way," Fowler said.

Once teams moved wrong 50 yards of the pin, they headed to a short-game complex, with a greenish that sits connected a 41-yard-wide turntable and has astir 600 devices underneath to alteration the contours. Players said it was hard to marque putts, which mightiness beryllium understandable.

Fans cheered. And they booed, a little, anyway. Schauffele heard those aft helium botched a chip, portion of a nighttime wherever not overmuch went close for his team.

"I astir apt would person booed maine too," Schauffele said.

The players seemed to emotion it. Lowry had one-liner aft one-liner. A mates of examples:

• "I'm going to beryllium the Scottie Scheffler of indoor golf."
• "A spot similar myself. A spot chunky," helium said aft 1 changeable came up a interaction short.

Handshakes, cheers each around

It ended with a 729-yard par-5, a reachable 729-yard par-5, if that makes immoderate sense. Handshakes and cheers each astir erstwhile it was over, Lowry gave a large question to the fans and the nighttime was done.

"So overmuch fun," Aberg said.

Woods loved it erstwhile immoderate fans were, let's say, not precisely quiescent arsenic Clark lined up a putt connected 1 of the aboriginal holes.

"You don't usually perceive that astatine events," Woods said. "You're going to perceive that here."

Woods is expected to debut for his Jupiter Links nine connected Jan. 14. McIlroy's debut could beryllium Jan. 27 erstwhile Boston Common plays Jupiter Links. The regular play goes until March 4. There are 24 players — six teams of 4 — and the apical 4 teams beforehand to the playoffs with a best-of-three title bid 2 weeks earlier the Masters.

Each squad activates 3 players for a match, and the 15-hole competitions volition beryllium done successful astir 2 hours. The league has been successful the works for a fewer years; the archetypal program was for it to commencement past year, but a tempest slowed operation and organizers pushed the debut backmost to 2025.

"It's not accepted golf, yes," Woods said. "But it is golf. And that's the main thing."

And, arsenic Fowler pointed out, the assemblage successful the arena is 1 thing, but however tv viewers judge it volition beryllium the large test.

"If it does good there, the sky's the bounds with what you tin do," Fowler said. "You tin enactment up arenas successful antithetic places. This is conscionable the start."