TGL Season 2: How Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy is improving the experience
Tom D'Angelo- Co-founders Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy's teams both missed the playoffs in the first season.
- The league is expanding the green, modifying the bunkers, and adding more lower bowl seating for its second season.
- Tiger Woods and Justin Thomas will miss the start of the season due to recent back surgeries.
PALM BEACH GARDENS — If everything went according to plan, the co-founders — and two highest-profile golfers in the world — of this indoor, high-tech golf league that caught the curiosity of golf fans last season, would have been battling it out for the championship of TGL's inaugural season.
Instead, Tiger Woods' Jupiter Links and Rory McIlroy's Boston Common Golf were the only teams not in the playoffs. Both were spectators for the dramatic final match that saw Atlanta Drive capture the first SoFi Cup by defeating New York Golf Club, culminating a season which by all measures was a success.
Now, Season 2 of this unique project spearheaded by TMRW Sports, starts with those teams headed by Woods and McIlroy having the most to prove.
"I think all of us are ready to not suck anymore," said Tom Kim, part of Woods' Jupiter team. "We're ready to win especially for a guy who's not used to losing as much. And he's on our butts to get into the playoffs."
TGL officials making changes to enhance player, fan experiences
One year ago, the league was an experiment. And with 24 players from the PGA Tour not knowing what to expect but hopeful it would work, TGL's launch was delayed a year after a storm collapsed the domed roof on the original arena.
Blueprints were torn up and a redesigned arena made of steel with a traditional roof instead of a bubble was reconstructed on the Palm Beach State College campus. And much like that storm did to the roof a year earlier, the new venue blew everyone away.
And by the end, as the league ironed out glitches and made on-the-fly changes, things could not have gone much better for a startup.
"We're sitting here with a product that has found an audience," Mike McCarley, who founded TMRW Sports and brought the TGL concept to Woods and McIlroy, said following the season.
The TGL team returned to the lab after a season that included 15 regular-season matches (six teams playing five matches each) and four-team postseason to work on enhancing the experience for Season 2, which opens Dec. 28 with a final rematch between Atlanta and New York.
"We kind of know what to expect now," Atlanta's Lucas Glover said. "The kinks were ironed out in the first season. For TV, the same thing. For fans, the same thing.
"I think it will be amped up a lot this season."
The league has made changes it hopes enhances the player and fan experiences.
The green was expanded from 3,800 to 5,270 square feet with the knoll being lowered by 18 inches. One bunker has been removed. Two larger and flatter bunkers now surround the green.
"They made it a little more birdie-able," Kim said. "A little easier to putt."
The fan experience will improve with more lower bowl seating and an in-house feed of players interacting from ESPN's broadcast and other channels accessible through earbuds.
"When you have a very intimate setting like that, the fans can be part of the action," Atlanta's Billy Horschel said. "I want the fans being involved. We had fans cheering and heckling players, giving us a hard time. That's pretty cool."
One thing the league nailed was the balance between entertainment and competition.
Some of the lighter moments — Kevin Kisner blading a shot out of the bunker that was headed toward the stands before ricocheting off the pin; Woods hitting a beautiful 100-yard wedge before realizing he was 199 yards out, not 99 — went viral.
And the competition really intensified after the Hammer rule was adjusted, and then in the playoffs, culminating with Horschel's 18-foot putt that set off a celebration never seen on the PGA Tour and catapulting Atlanta to the championship.
"It brought all the matches tighter," Glover said about the Hammer, a yellow flag each team possess that, when thrown, increases the point value of that hole. "You really had to be strategic with it and that amps up the intensity."
Tiger Woods, Justin Thomas sidelined after back surgeries
The league's first bold experiment for Season 2 is going head-to-head with the NFL in its opener. The 3 p.m. start on ABC the Sunday after Christmas is opposite several games from the 1 p.m. time slots on CBS and FOX that will be in the second half, and those kicking off in the late time slot.
"Hopefully some of those early 1 p.m. games are some awful games and blowouts or teams that aren't doing well and people turn to ABC to watch us," Horschel said. "That would be really cool."
One of those early games, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at the Miami Dolphins, will be played 70 miles to the south of the SoFi Center, with Dolphins fans likely having checked out for the season and open to watching something different.
TGL's TV ratings in Season 1 exceeded ESPN's expectations with an overall average of 500,000 viewers.
However, this TGL season opens with two of its biggest stars sidelined.
Woods had disc replacement surgery Oct. 10 and confirmed he would miss the first half, and possibly more, of the season. Jupiter Links' opener is Jan. 13. They also play Jan. 20, Feb. 2, March 1 and March 3.
Woods did say he will attend every Jupiter Links match.
Justin Thomas, part of Atlanta's title team along with Horschel, Glover and Patrick Cantlay, will miss most of the season after undergoing a microdiscectomy Nov. 13.
With each team consisting of four members for the three spots it requires for each match, neither team will be adding a permanent replacement. Season 2 starts with the same 24 players from last season.
The league does have PGA Tour players ready to fill in on one-match contracts.
TGL already has announced expansion for Season 3 with at least one team — Detroit's Motor City Golf Club — on board. And there was trademark filings from TGL Holdings for potential franchises in Chicago and Texas (likely Dallas) for "Chicago Links Golf Club" and "Texas Golf Club," which also could join in 2027.
"Fans asked 'do I enjoy it as much as it seems and is it more enjoyable when you're there?' " Kim said. "I said 'yes.'
"But it's way more intense than people think. I think a lot of people just think we're having fun because they can hear us talk. We're actually really trying to beat each other and it's way more competitive."
Tom D'Angelo is a senior sports columnist and reporter for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at tdangelo@pbpost.com.
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