Three of the highest 10 ranked golfers on this planet and 6 of the highest 100 got here collectively Tuesday evening in an “enviornment” in Florida to play indoor golf — in an occasion that would change the game perpetually.
That’s a big proclamation, however given the route {of professional} golf lately, it’s virtually unimaginable to venture the game’s future. Nevertheless, the debut of TGL, a brand new tech-infused golf league headed by the 2 hottest golfers on this planet, went off with out a relative hitch and impressed no scarcity of response from sports activities followers all over the place.
The Bay Golf Membership gained the inaugural match, strolling throughout New York GC within the first match held on the SoFi Heart in Florida. With all due respect to the star-studded area, nobody will keep in mind the outcome, and that’s type of the purpose in some regards — or so it appears.
Listed here are some opening-night takeaways following the official launch of the TGL.
Issues went off with out a hitch
There’s no manner the TGL didn’t take a look at Evening 1 as something aside from a rousing success. The Duke-Pitt faculty basketball sport was a powerful lead-in however didn’t run over. The published appeared and sounded good. The tech all appeared as much as par (no pun supposed). And for hardcore golf followers, it nonetheless felt prefer it was one thing resembling the actual factor in manner that wasn’t an entire turn-off (a minimum of for many). The laborious work paid off, and everybody concerned clearly made the many of the further yr of prep that appears like a blessing in disguise in hindsight.
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The necessity for pace
Anybody who has spent a lazy Sunday afternoon in the summertime watching the John Deere Basic can inform you golf has a pace-of-play downside. That made the TGL’s 40-second shot clock virtually jarring. However it largely labored. All golf followers — or followers of any sport — is to actualyl watch the sports activities they love. No sport historically struggles with that as a lot as golf, so there are not any complaints on that finish, both. The problem going through the game’s energy brokers transferring ahead is the right way to get all of that to switch to the game’s out of doors model on the highest ranges.
Id disaster?
The perfect components of the primary match had been when viewers got unfettered entry to the mic’d-up golfers taking part in golf. It wasn’t the over-the-top intros, the borderline uncomfortable pregame handshake, and it for many, we assume, it wasn’t something with DJ Khaled. When it felt like we got inside entry to the world’s finest golfers doing cool golf issues with some light-hearted banter blended in, that was the good things. That was legitimately enjoyable. Hopefully, that’s what the league leans into. Professional golf takes itself critically, and that’s cool and comprehensible when there’s $25 million prize swimming pools on the road. However it is a huge display screen with golf holes into volcanoes and whatnot. Lean into that and get just a little weirder.
The pilot downside
The published typically talking was … high quality. ESPN is ESPN, and simply the publicity alone is nice for the game. Nevertheless, the published left just a little to be desired for causes which are tough to completely articulate. A part of that could be the relative break-neck tempo. It’s laborious to inform any kind of story at that pace. The published additionally took itself just a little too critically generally. However right here’s the factor: Pilots aren’t at all times one of the best model of a TV present. This factor goes to most likely look and sound totally different as quickly as subsequent week, and that’s most likely an excellent factor.
Extra information, please
One wonderful thing about the ESPNs TGL telecast was the top-level manufacturing the community is understood for with no scarcity of cameras and angles and the like. One small request? Give us some extra details about the precise golf photographs, whether or not that’s yardages on the display screen or swing-speed information (with context). That could be the kind of factor that’s particularly tough with the pace of the sport, however just a little extra could be nice for the diehards.
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However … it’s additionally not about us
There was a operating joke on X through the telecast about dudes who wives had been seeing Ludvig Aberg for the primary time, and properly, turning into smitten with the 25-year-old Swede. Maybe not so coincidentally, Van Pelt interviewed Aberg on “SportsCenter” after the match. That’s one small side, but it surely’s necessary for golf diehards to recollect this isn’t essentially catered to them (us). That’s OK. Perhaps that makes DJ Khaled needed (up for debate). However that additionally makes it extra necessary to lean into the bizarre stuff, too.
The place we go from right here
Only one golf fan’s opinion, however the long-term success of TGL shall be outlined by two issues: The primary is how a lot it might probably really develop the sport with new, various audiences by providing the game in a brand new manner. The second is how its improvements can affect and enhance green-grass golf on the skilled stage with wanted evolution. On the league’s first evening, the potential to do each of these issues was there.
