Dylan Dethier
Tiger Woods emerged from the fog on Tuesday night.
Getty Images
How was Tiger Woods’ TGL entrance?
That depends who you ask.
An unofficial poll of social media offered a general hell yeah. Social media likes Tiger Woods. Add a red shirt, a red tunnel and some dramatic fog? Can’t-miss combo.
A tougher grader sat front-row inside the SoFi Center on Tuesday night. How would Tiger’s son Charlie, who was slugging a Sprite alongside some buddies, score his dad’s entrance? Four out of 10, he told ESPN’s Marty Smith. Ouch.
But perhaps the only important perspective came from Woods himself, who couldn’t stop grinning in the moments after he’d emerged to Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger,” dropped the hammer and laced the opening tee shot down the center?
“That was awesome,” he said. “That was the best.”
It’s all an optimistic blend of past, present and future, this TGL endeavor. Woods embodies that. He’s 49 years old and it’s been a half-decade since he contended in a PGA Tour event but he’s still the sport’s biggest draw, and this league was constructed with his talents and his aura in mind. There’s no shortage of nostalgia in this league’s DNA, then, even as it tries to push the sport into the future. The T in TGL stands (unofficially, as it turns out) for Tomorrow. It was fitting that Woods debuted Tomorrow’s Golf League to yesterday’s music. “Eye of the Tiger” was released in 1982, 27 years before Charlie was born. It was a little on the nose. That didn’t much matter.
Before long, Tuesday’s competition turned into a bit of a dud. For the team in red, an early deficit turned into a big-time blowout. Y’know that phrase “If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry?” By the end Woods did both.
But big-picture, TGL’s Week 2 left us with three burning questions.
1. What’s up with Tiger’s team?
Look, it’ll take some time for every squad to get its bearings in a brand-new arena playing what is at least a half-new sport. But Jupiter Links Golf Club, consisting on this night of Woods, Max Homa and Kevin Kisner, was bad. Like, bad bad. Los Angeles Golf Club — Justin Rose, Sahith Theegala and Collin Morikawa — drubbed ’em, 12-1.
“We were entertaining,” Woods said post-round. “We hit a lot of shots. I think the people here, they got to see how bad pros can be. It was just a boat race.”
Kisner seemed particularly ill-prepared for the endeavor. The longtime fan-favorite Tour pro is a delight on every broadcast he joins — and will be doing that full-time going forward — but the TGL is a bomber’s league, and his performance off the tee told an unfortunate story. He hit just one of three fairways and averaged just 159.6 mph ball speed with driver, 12 mph behind the next-slowest.
But Woods, who appeared healthy and showed off plenty of speed, nevertheless offered a blunt self-assessment.
“The walking is not the issue,” he said. “It’s my game is not very good.”
If there’s hope for Jupiter it’s that Woods will figure out the screen, Homa will be a reliable presence and they can draw energy from the arrival of Tom Kim, their fourth teammate, who is known for igniting underdogs in team match play.
“We’ve called Tom and asked him to fly on out here, live in this thing for a little while,” Homa said.
“What’s [Tom] thinking right now? Woods asked. “Oh my God.”
Anyone who has ever played golf knows just how difficult it is to stay cheery when you’re playing bad golf. It was a gift, then, that Kisner produced the most memorable moment of the night on the 14th hole when he bladed a bunker shot off the pin, sending his teammates ducking for cover — and then into hysterics.
“We honestly didn’t think that anyone could possibly get hit in here,” Woods said; had the ball not hit the pin it would have ended up in the stands. “But that was one of the funniest moments I’ve ever seen, Kiz hitting that shot like that. We were just dying.”
2. What was up with the simulators?
If you’re on this website reading about a simulator golf league there’s a good chance that you have played some golf on some sort of simulator. And if you have played golf on a simulator you know that the most frustrating part is the way the ball just reacts a little bit differently than it would in real life. (Or at least it seems to — there is, of course, no way to know in real time, which only adds to the frustration.) What would be a gentle cut in real life can turn to a long-left pull. What should have carried 105 somehow carries 90, or vice-versa. That’s all good if you’re tucked into the corner of a local bowling alley with three buddies and two pitchers. But when you’re on ESPN and you’re asking people to consider betting real-life cash on this thing? There’s a little more pressure on the tech to cooperate.
In fairness, the TGL’s tech is mostly mind-blowingly good, from the rotating green to the little spotlight that shows players where to put their ball. But at a very basic level the league needs carry distances to be really, really reliable, and the forward teeing ground where they were hitting wedges seemed to be off. Woods sent one wedge screaming 20-plus yards over the green and into the water. Morikawa and Kisner seemed perplexed at various points, too.
“I know from the front tee box we hit every single wedge shot long,” Woods said.
“Significantly long,” Homa added.
The players were understandably careful about overt criticism on the broadcast, but something was clearly up. Whether the cameras weren’t picking up spin properly or, well, I have no idea. This is all outside my skill set. Hopefully it’s not outside of theirs. Trust in the tech is the foundation of the entire thing.
3. What’ll it look like if we get a close match?
Two weeks in we’re also two blowouts in. That’s a nightmare scenario for a league promising a fast-paced, action-packed two hours of golf. On the bright side, though: we still don’t know what a close match looks like!
We’ve learned from various iterations of The Match throughout the years that it’s basically impossible to save a blowout golf match. Tension breaks down and banter does too and the whole thing starts to feel a bit ridiculous. But the TGL in a close match still seems like it could be a lot of fun. Throwing hammers over high-pressure putts? Tracking a crucial tee shot as it flies over a massive pit of digital lava? Some real, actual tension between some of the most competitive, highest-achieving golfers on the planet? I’m willing to see what that looks like.
Maybe next week.
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Dylan Dethier
Golf.com Editor
Dylan Dethier is a senior writer for GOLF Magazine/GOLF.com. The Williamstown, Mass. native joined GOLF in 2017 after two years scuffling on the mini-tours. Dethier is a graduate of Williams College, where he majored in English, and he’s the author of 18 in America, which details the year he spent as an 18-year-old living from his car and playing a round of golf in every state.
