Trend-setting indoor golf league TGL set for hi-tech tee off in Florida arena

The term “arena golf” is set to entrench itself in the lexicon of the sport with the launch on Tuesday of Tomorrow’s Golf League presented by SoFi, the technology-driven indoor tournament that has been jointly set up by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.

The league will see six teams in action inside the purpose-built SoFi Centre at Palm Beach State College in Florida in a series of match-ups starting with the inaugural set of 15-hole matches between the New York Golf Club and The Bay Golf Club with the ball being played into the world’s largest simulator screen off real turf and rough areas.

According to the TGL website, “Once players get their ball to the green, they move to the GreenZone, which includes a 41-yard-wide turntable green that can accommodate any number of hole designs created by TGL hole designersAgustín Pizá, Beau Welling, and Nicklaus Design.”

Every team will nominate three of their four -strong roster and play five matches throughthe season in a round-robin system ahead of the playoffs at the end of March. Tuesday’s season-opener pitsRickie Fowler, Matt Fitzpatrick, and Xander Schauffele of NYGC against The Bay Golf Club lineup of Shane Lowry, Wyndham Clark,and Ludvig Åberg

Matches will be divided into nine holes of alternate shot and six holes of singles. In the alternate shot section, three players from each team will alternate shots on each hole. In six holes of singles, three players from each team will be matched against each other. Every hole fetches a point and the team with most points after the regulation 15 holes will be the winner.

Of the six in action on Tuesday, Clark, Aberg, Schauffele, and Fitzpatrick saw action at The Sentry in Hawaii won in dominant fashion by Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama, who will be part of McIlroy’s Boston Common Golf in the TGL.

“The first thing I would like to have people know is it’s golf, but it’s reimagined, sort of trying to take golf into the 21st century,” McIlroy was quoted as saying on ESPN, which will telecast the matches along with ESPN Plus.

“We have teams, obviously there’s a lot of technology involved, trying to bring it into the digital era. A lot of things that we’ve taken from other sports like a shot clock, a timeout, things that you don’t see in regular golf. It’s trying to appeal to that bigger sports audience out there.

“Every time I step in here (the SoFi Centre) I’m just blown away by the size of the screen, the fact that we’re able to put something that looks like golf on a stage like this. It’s really cool and we’re obviously really excited about it within the game of golf.”

While Tiger Woods will play his first match on January 14 for Jupiter Links Golf Club alongside Max Homa, Joohyung ‘Tom; Kim and Kevin Kisner, McIlroy makes his BCG debut 10 days later with Matsuyama, Keegan Bradley and Adam Scott.

The league is being run by TMRW Sports, the technology-orientedsports company launched by Woods and McIlroy in August 2022 and backed by the likes of Serena and Venus Williams, Stephen Curry and Liverpool’s owners Fenway Sports Group.

According to media reports, as many as 30 holes have been designed for the season and will be used in rotation of 15 to each match and players will be on a 40-second shot clock with a one-stroke penalty for the player overrunning the time. 

The four teams atop the league at season’s end go into the semi-finals before the best-of-three final, starting on March 24.