TGL Thoughts Following Opening Night

When it comes to TGL, the new indoor simulator golf league featuring teams of PGA Tour stars competing weekly on ESPN platforms, my hot take on the Tiger Woods/Rory McIlroy venture has been the same since they announced the project and remains after the opening night:

Y’all ain’t got nothing better to do for two hours every Tuesday night in the winter.

The guy on social media who logged into his account and replied to this take by imploring others to instead read more books notwithstanding, it’s difficult for even the most casual golf fan to peek at the proceedings due to curiosity and not continue watching just because it looks so much different from anything else that’s previously existed.

In fact, it’s the “purists” who have seemed to take more of an issue with TGL for this exact reason, which is ironic in the sense that TGL was created specifically to look different. All of which leads to my next tepid take on the league:

Even if it’s not for you, surely you can understand that it might hold some appeal to those outside your demographic. Case in point: I’m not much of a YouTube golf consumer; I don’t watch it and don’t really have any desire to change that. But I don’t hate it. If anything, I love the fact that it brings new faces to the game I love, faces that otherwise might’ve never gotten here.

Same goes for TGL.

Look, I get it. After reading these first few paragraphs, some might stop here and accuse me of blindly cheerleading for the latest PGA Tour-sponsored product. Trust me: That’s not the case.

One week into the league’s season, I have as many negatives as positives about it.

Ahead of Week 2, which will feature Tiger as a competitor instead of just lingering owner/analyst, I’ll start with more of the latter, then work my way into the former – all ripped from my initial social media posts during last week’s direct aftermath.

• The tech is sick. Futuristic-type stuff. Impossible to watch and not think, “Man, I’d love to play there someday.” I honestly think there’s a non-zero chance that the most profitable aspect of TGL long-term is SoFi Arena (and others like it) serving as a host for corporate functions and other high-end affairs which want to allow their guests to play like the pros.

• It’s wayyy more fast-paced than regular golf. Maybe *too* fast-paced, but it certainly moves. If regular golf is viewed by many as the ultimate nap-inducer, then TGL feeds into our collective Attention Deficit Disorder.

• Players seem invested. Alright, so it’s not a final-round-of-the-Masters level of desire, but they all seem like they wanted to win. Even more significant, they were having fun. It doesn’t matter how cool the tech is; if the players look bored, the viewers will be bored. They looked like they were having a blast, which is so important.

• Speaking of importance, that’s how ESPN made it feel. Opening night felt like a special event. Scott Van Pelt, Matt Barrie and Marty Smith are some of the best in the biz. The graphics looked terrific. And the promotion across all platforms was greater than I’d expected. They made it considerably “bigger” than others could have done.

Alright, enough with the gushing.

You want criticisms? I’ve got just as many. Let’s get to the ways TGL didn’t quite work, whether it was issues that needed short-term fixes or long-term solutions.

• Too many rules. Don’t bog us down with the details. Throw hammers everywhere, press matches… hell, have some side action. Ever see that old show, “Whose Line is it Anyway?” The comedians would act out some improv performances; then a judge would randomly assign point totals which meant absolutely nothing. I know this is a “serious sport” and serious sports have rules, but I wish this was a bit more focused on the entertainment product as a whole.

• Even fast-paced, maybe too long. Nine holes? An hour? Might be enough. I found myself checking the clock halfway through the proceedings, wondering how there was so much time left. In conversations with others who watched, I wasn’t alone in this assessment.

• With every player mic’d, it was difficult to know who was saying what. It felt like we were trying to eavesdrop instead of being allowed into the conversation. That might not sound like a big deal, but there’s nuance in providing this sort of access to the consumer which never quite made it through the TV screen.

• And the biggest thing (for me): There’s no personal investment for the consumer. Unless you’re betting or just a massive Bay GC fan, you need a reason to return for 14 more of these when you’ve already seen what it is. How do they resolve this? I’ll admit it: I have absolutely no idea. Creating passion amongst the fanbase probably needs to come with subtlety rather than bonking us over the head with it. Any good TV series keeps you on the edge wanting more, but I’m not sure many viewers left this opening night clamoring for anything other than watching Tiger in the next one.

I’ll leave you (and perhaps TGL’s organizers) with one suggestion moving forward: More randomness. I’d love to see some big button that gets pressed (think, “No Whammies, no Whammies… stop!”) and arbitrarily calls for a three-man scramble on the lava hole or a best-ball on a par-3 with an island green. Anything to break up what I fear could be a version of the league which is currently too formulaic on a weekly basis.

All of that said, I remain steadfast in my overall review of TGL as an entertainment product.

If nothing else, it’s a decent way to kill two hours on a Tuesday night in the winter.