Landor creates identity for New York’s futuristic golf club

Tomorrow’s Golf League (TGL) is, as its name would suggest, a golf tournament of the future. Founded in 2022 and based in the US, it promises to be the next best thing in the 500-year-old sport, bringing together cutting-edge technology with the traditional format of the game.

It will be played indoors on a virtual course, which allows players to hit the ball from various types of terrain into a huge interactive screen, as well as conduct ‘the short game’ (chipping and putting) on a real fairway and green. As such, TGL, which will launch on ESPN in January 2025, is slated to be a more accessible and action-packed version of the sport.

TGL was founded by Tmrw Sports, a company comprising professional golfers such as Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, and players of this calibre will be competing in the new tournament. It will feature six clubs across the US, representing some of the country’s most well-known cities and towns, including Atlanta, Boston, Jupiter (Florida), Los Angeles, San Francisco and, of course, New York City.

The latter, named the New York Golf Club (NYGC), has a particularly high-profile team, with the current second-best player in the world, Xander Schauffele, featured in its roster. As such, the managers behind the club wanted it to have suitably first-class branding, and recently reached out to brand consultancy Landor to come up with something special. The firm’s design director, Luke Melloy, led on the project, and he says the brief was clear from the start: elevate the NYGC into the legendary ranks of New York’s other iconic sporting teams.

“We set out to [create] something timeless yet modern,” he says. “Something that would appeal to traditional golfers and those that are new to the game – a nod to golf’s heritage but also a more modern feel to fit this new-to-world format of golf.”

Inspired by the city’s rich history and iconography, Melloy and his team looked to New York’s state bird, the Eastern Bluebird, to become the centrepiece for the NYGC logo. Its distinctive shape is merged with the outline of a golf club in motion to form a clever mascot that nods to both the region in which the NYGC is situated and the historic game that it represents. Four stripes on the bird’s wing also serve as the grooves in the head of the golf club, and reference the four players who make up the team.

All of these elements sit within a bold circle, which is taken from the circle that many players draw on their scorecard to symbolise a desirable ‘birdie’ score – one under par.

Another crucial aspect of the branding was the colour palette, and as Landor had already settled on the Eastern Bluebird as the focal point, this naturally informed the rest of the identity. The striking blue hues of the bird’s feathers are combined with the rich navy blue of the Empire State building to further unite the city and its enduring icon. “[There is also] a homage to the New York harbour with the light blue of the Hudson mist,” adds Melloy.

Reflecting on the project, Melloy says: “We loved that this logo could become a symbol for everyday golfers to use. Could we see a little bird being drawn on scorecards in the future? That is exciting.”

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