Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy sat in the booth like a pair of Christofs presiding over golf’s version of the Truman Show in a futuristic arena in downtown Palm Beach on Tuesday night.
Nothing seemed real at the TGL first night – and, indeed, this is hardly “real” golf, as it is staged indoors – but the two superstars perched high up above believed there was plenty of substance in the first steps of their virtual baby.
It turned out to be a wise ploy to resist playing Woods and McIlroy and instead to have the co-owners of this $100 million venture performing as analysts. Together with renowned US TV executive Mike McCarley they formed Tomorrow’s Golf League and thus were in the perfect position to try to sell the simulation concept to Gen Z, if not to those of us traditionalists who are unashamedly part of the Old F generation.
This embedded content is not available in your region.
X/@TGL
It will take weeks, months and maybe – with all the investment from the likes of Sir Lewis Hamilton, Sir Andy Murray and the Williams Sisters – years to determine whether it can cut through to the ancient game’s holy-grail new audience.
But, for now, hyperbole was the order of the laser-filled spectacular in Southern Florida.
“This was just a dream conjured up,” Woods said during the broadcast. “Rory and I were talking about it; it’s hard to believe that dream came into reality and we were able to take golf into another stratosphere.”
No, Woods is never one to play down any business opportunity with the potential to earn his dynasty a few quid, but, in fairness, as an opening drive, this did find the sweet spot.
Blessedly, the technology worked and the SoFi Center – erected at the extraordinary cost of $50 million – looked magnificent on live TV, even if for UK viewers it was at the inaccessible time of 2am.
McIlroy called it “golf reimagined” and with strobe lights, smoke machines and a rather annoying DJ, this was indeed surreal from whichever perspective it was surveyed. Dystopia to the purists. Wonderland to the marketeers.
Yet as Woods pointed out, it was still golf and the records will show – if Tomorrow’s Golf League lasts long enough to warrant anything as weighty as a history book – that the three pros of The Bay Golf Club demolished the trio of the New York Golf Club with a performance that sets the bar.
Ludvig Aberg, the impeccable Swede who has something of the faultless droid about him, provided the quality with the clubs in hand, while with his agricultural use of English, Shane Lowry gave the mic’d-up experience the colour. “F— me, what a shot!” he shouted to Aberg, before, in triumph, claiming of his own expertise: “I’m going to be the Scottie Scheffler of indoor golf.”
The boy from Co Offaly was in his element, even if it was an element none of his forefathers would recognise. “The last time I’ve had that much fun was probably in Rome last September,” Lowry said with a wink, turning towards US Ryder Cup player Wyndham Clark. “Look, I had an amazing two hours and there was all sorts going on when I hit the first tee shot.”
Even Aberg’s pulse struggled to maintain its straight line. “My heart was racing, I was sweating … it was a different competitive environment that we’re not really used to,” he said. “But I think this is the future, this is where the game’s going to head, and I love it.”
Really? Surely golf cannot exist solely, or even partially, under a roof, although the tech-infused mayhem will appeal to a certain sector. Rickie Fowler put it best when calling it “a glorified man cave”. It has the power to inspire these “entertainers” to behave differently and haul them out of their corporate strait-jackets.
Take Xander Schauffele. We already knew what the two-time major champion can do when his eye is in, but this time his tongue was allowed off the hook as he showed a nice line in “banter”. The X-Man, as they called him, went above, if not beyond, and for the guarded personalities who populate the locker rooms he provided a measure of what could be possible if they allow the viewers to peek behind the curtain.
“I probably would have booed me too,” Schauffele replied when asked about the 1,500-strong crowd baiting his form.
However, there can be no doubt the star of the show was the 20-metre high screen to which the protagonists walloped their balls and the rotating green on which the golfers stood at times precariously as they tried to figure out the moving gradients. “They have no frame of reference,” Woods said, and he could have been referring to the spectacle as an entirety.
The fans in attendance appeared to buy in wholeheartedly, but it is the ESPN viewing figures that will ultimately decide TGL’s fate. Next week, Woods, himself, gets his turn under the lights, with the shot-clock and the timeouts.
His story was always destined for the big screen.
