Tiger Woods' Virtual Golf League Announces Format, And It Sounds Surprisingly Entertaining
The Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy led virtual golf league TGL will officially begin on Jan. 9, 2024. And with the new year fast approaching, the new venture has announced the format and rules ahead of the launch.
Big-picture wise, this is going to be professional golfers hitting balls into a giant screen, but the nuts and bolts of what TGL will entail actually sounds entertaining.
Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy's TGL format and venue look and sound sweet. (Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images)
The league is made up of six different teams made up of four players including seven of the Top 10 players in the Official World Golf Rankings. Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Xander Schauffele, Woods, and McIlroy are among the group of players who will be competing.
The regular season will consist of 15 matches before a best-of-three championship will be decided by the top two teams at the end of the campaign.
TGL Format And Scoring
Overtime will also be in play, and could very well be the most entertaining scenario imaginable with a closest-to-pin contest taking place until one team hits two shots closer than the other.
The best players in the world going head-to-head throwing darts at a flag, and both players on each team being held accountable, should make for some fun drama.
Match-winning teams will get two points in the standings with an overtime loss giving one point to the losing squad. Four of the six teams will qualify for the postseason before a single-elimination bracket unfolds.
Now, as for the actual set up where shots will be hit, it's not your run-of-the-mill golf simulator.
All TGL matches will take place at newly-built SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida with the 'course' spanning the surface of roughly a football field. Actual real grass tee boxes, fairways, rough, and sand will be used for players to then hit shots into a screen 20 times the size of a standard simulator screen.
The technology gets even more ramped up when it comes to shots inside 50 yards. Players will move from the simulator to the 'Green Zone,' a surface spanning more than four basketball courts, for shots inside 50 yards. The putting surface itself is also adaptable and will change the green's slope depending on the hole being played.
The green setup is the most important piece to the puzzle. Anyone who has ever played virtual golf understands that putting, from literally any distance, is a waste of time and effort. Players putting on a moving green brings in a very important variable.
I'm all in on the TGL, at least for the opening event. I have faith in Woods and McIlroy putting their brains together and making an entertaining product, and now with the rules and format on paper, this should be fun to watch during the winter months.
Follow Mark Harris on X @ItIsMarkHarris and email him at mark.harris@outkick.com