Tiger Woods is anticipated to play aggressive golf once more in January.
Woods, who underwent again surgical procedure final month, is being promoted as making his TGL debut within the nascent league’s second week of competitors. His Jupiter Hyperlinks Golf Membership crew will play Los Angeles Golf Membership at 7 p.m. ET on Jan. 14, televised on ESPN.
TGL launched its full schedule Monday forward of its debut in January. Its first match on Jan. 7 (9 p.m. ET, ESPN) will function New York Golf Membership (Xander Schauffele, Rickie Fowler, Matt Fitzpatrick and Cameron Younger) in opposition to The Bay Golf Membership (Ludvig Åberg, Wyndham Clark, Shane Lowry and Min Woo Lee).
The league itself is a giant wager on a really completely different type of golf. As a substitute of enjoying on a golf course, the professionals will hit balls into an enormous video display projecting digital golf holes. As soon as they’re 50 yards away from the pin on the display, they’ll bodily chip and putt on a inexperienced that’s been constructed within the West Palm Seaside, Fla., venue. The placing inexperienced has pistons beneath that’ll enable it to vary form for every gap.
The 24 PGA Tour professionals that signed up for the enterprise (Woods and Rory McIlroy led its creation) had been separated into six groups of 4, with branding aligned with six completely different areas of the nation.
All of this may happen in entrance of a stay viewers, in a two-hour window. All matches can be proven on an ESPN community, 16 of them in primetime.
The crew matches will function three of the 4 roster gamers every time, with lineups formed by availability across the PGA Tour schedule. The league will take off the weeks of the Genesis Invitational and Gamers Championship, the highlights of the primary three months of the tour season.
𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗧𝗚𝗟 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 @SoFi.
Coming January 2025 on @espn.
Hearken to TGL’s personal @RickieFowler speak match format, guidelines, and crew golf. ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/MwL74ZgBqF
— TGL (@TGL) March 25, 2024
Woods is joined on his crew by Max Homa, Tom Kim and Kevin Kisner. The concept that Woods generally is a central determine in lots of his crew’s matches shouldn’t be with out cause — he’s extra out there than anybody else, lives within the space and has a monetary stake within the league’s success. It’s additionally a mode of golf that’s nothing like making an attempt to stroll 72 holes over 4 days.
Woods hoped to play as soon as a month in 2024 however that proved unrealistic — after withdrawing from the Genesis Invitational in February he solely performed within the 4 majors for the remainder of the PGA Tour season. He made the reduce on the Masters however slumped over the weekend to fall into final place, then missed the reduce on the PGA Championship, U.S. Open and The Open from Could to July.
Different high gamers within the league embody McIlroy (Boston Widespread Golf), Justin Thomas (Atlanta Drive GC), Collin Morikawa (Los Angeles), Sahith Theegala (Los Angeles) and Patrick Cantlay (Atlanta).
TGL was initially anticipated to make its debut in January 2024 earlier than it reported points with its unique venue after a storm. The league has since constructed a everlasting facility, with seating for 1,500 followers.
Required studying
(Photograph: Andrew Redington / Getty Pictures)