Tiger Woods’s TGL debut confirmed the league’s potential, but additionally its shortcomings.
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Tiger Woods’ TGL debut on Tuesday night time continued to showcase the simulator golf league’s huge potential.
It’s enjoyable, unfastened and entertaining at first. Tiger Woods walked out to Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” by way of a cloud of smoke. There was Justin Rose, extra in his aspect than initially assumed, throwing up the “LA” hand signal and apologizing to Los Angeles GC co-owner Serena Williams for a poor tee shot. Max Homa offered the comedic reduction, which included a terrific trade along with his teammate Woods in the course of the center of LA’s 12-1 win over Jupiter Hyperlinks.
“My spouse might be so embarrassed proper now,” Homa mentioned.
“My mother’s yelling at me, booing me,” Woods responded with amusing.
Then there was the second of the match, which got here when the third member of Jupiter Hyperlinks, Kevin Kisner, bladed a bunker shot that clanged off the flagstick and drew an epic response from Woods.
These have been the highlights. But it surely was clear TGL went backward on its second night time. All startups have rising pains. This can be a new concept that deserves room to adapt and discover its identification.
However the two largest points TGL faces — each of which have been on show throughout Woods’ debut — should be fastened to maintain golf followers coming again and provides the league the time it must develop.
Neither must be that tough to rectify.
The primary — and largest — difficulty to date is that TGL doesn’t really feel like a contest by way of two matches. A few of that’s as a result of Bay GC woodshedded New York GC on opening night time, after which LA blew the doorways off Jupiter on Tuesday. Blowouts occur in sports activities, however proper now TGL has a contest drawback.
The gamers don’t need to deal with TGL like its a serious or perhaps a commonplace PGA Tour stroke-play occasion, however to retain an viewers the gamers do have to view TGL contests as one thing they need to win and never simply hit-and-giggle with buddies on a simulator.
TGL must have the identical aggressive vibe as a pickup basketball recreation along with your school mates; it’s enjoyable, positive, however you’re nonetheless enjoying for delight — a light-hearted competitors that brings out the banter everybody desires from the world’s greatest.
We bought a few of that from Sahith Theegala on Tuesday, who admitted to being “amped up” after blasting a ball into the enormous display screen. The TGL wants extra of that, however proper now, it additionally have to greater than only a chuckle-fest with “the boys.”
Shut matches ought to assist, however TGL wants to search out the fitting aspect of that identification line to have some endurance. It’s greater than possible, and I’d anticipate the good individuals working the league to tweak issues for the higher.
However the competitors facet has been missing by way of two occasions, and the insistence on going 15 holes regardless of the rating doesn’t assist.
If Homa is jokingly asking when Duke celebrity Cooper Flagg performs (the reply was after the TGL match that went over its two-hour broadcast window), you’ll be able to wager viewers are questioning that, too.
Tiger Woods made his TGL debut. We left with 3 burning questions
The second difficulty was with the Full Swing simulator expertise. This didn’t seem like a problem on the primary night time, nevertheless it was clear the tech wasn’t working correctly Tuesday night time.
There’s a zero p.c probability that Woods, the best ball-striker in historical past, would hit a flush 100-yard wedge shot and wind up blowing it 30 yards over the inexperienced. There have been too many moments on Tuesday night time the place the simulator left gamers perplexed at how poorly they hit a shot, particularly from brief vary.
“I didn’t even hook that,” just isn’t one thing that must be a typical saying on TGL broadcasts.
The expertise can’t make the perfect on the earth look foolish or inept. Full cease.
That brings me to the inexperienced. It’s a technological innovation, however the league should fine-tune it. Gamers of this caliber hardly ever run 25-foot putts 7 toes previous the outlet. Tiger Woods and Justin Rose having an unattainable time stopping downhill places and/or lacking putts within the 5-to-7-foot vary by half a cup or extra is…not nice.
As my colleague Dylan Dethier identified, the gamers stopped wanting brazenly criticizing the expertise on Tuesday, however the league wants to shine it by subsequent week’s match.
TGL has promise. It’s not for everybody, however there’s an viewers for it if they will get just a few issues dialed. Do this, and Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s grand imaginative and prescient may have endurance for a brand new form of golf viewers.
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