Why TGL made a big mistake by not sending Tiger Woods or Rory McIlroy out first

TGL really bogged down the 1st by not sending out Tiger Woods or Rory McIlroy for the opening game week, writes GolfMagic editor Andy Roberts.

Woods and McIlroy’s new TGL, in partnership with TMRW Sports co-founder and CEO Mike McCarley and the PGA Tour, released the full list of regular season schedules earlier this week.

But to the surprise of virtually everyone, there was no sign of Woods’ Jupiter Left GC or McIlroy’s Boston Common GC for the very first game week on January 7, 2025.

Instead, that honor falls to GC of New York consisting of Xander Schauffele, Matt Fitzpatrick, Rickie Fowler and Cameron Young, and The Bay GC consisting of Ludvig Aberg, Wyndham Clark, Shane Lowry and Min Woo Lee.

With all due respect to these eight players, all of whom are fantastic PGA Tour golfers, I might add, especially Schauffelethis TGL lid lifter barely leaves most fans pulsing.

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I find it truly baffling why Woods and McIlroy weren’t dispatched first.

It’s even more confusing than the $160 price of a general admission ticket to TGL.

To grow. The. Game. She. Said.

Why not come out swinging and really announce TGL on the map with one of your two perennial needle movers Woods or McIlroy in action on opening night?

Rory McIlroy

After all, Woods and McIlroy were the two guys who knocked their heads together and came up with TGL in the first place. And all credit to them.

Woods will eventually come into action on January 14 in the second matchweek, but McIlroy will not be seen until matchweek four when he collides with the fifteen-time national champion.

Maybe it’s a clever ploy by TGL and the PGA Tour to keep the tails wagging until January 27, and maybe they’re so confident that it will be an instant hit with fans that will keep them coming back for more every game week.

Obviously, Woods, 48, is still recovering from his sixth career back surgery, over a year after his ankle surgery, so he may have asked for an extra week on the sidelines, but I think hard to believe since that’s all he has to do. hit a few balls into a screen.

Tiger Forest

On the plus side, I fully expect Woods and McIlroy to be there in person at the SoFi Center on opening night, especially since this is a home game for both of them in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.

Woods and McIlroy’s presence on January 7 hasn’t been officially confirmed yet, but you’d think there’d be an element of pride at stake here and they’d want to be on site to give an introductory speech to the masses about what TGL all is. about.

And given the number of powerhouses and limited partners that have pumped money into each of the six teams, you would fully expect Woods and McIlroy to be regularly involved in all TGL game weeks through the Playoffs at the end of March.

This is ultimately their project.

TGL needs Woods and McIlroy to move this forward, and the truth is, no one else in line is going to do it for them.

It will certainly take more than Min Woo Lee, a player who was knocked out of the Presidents Cup in three games, to get things boiling.

However, TGL needs some big personalities to step up to help Woods and McIlroy make this an overnight success.

I’m not saying the professional game is full of boring characters, far from itbut this technology-infused golf competition does offer some of these guys a free opportunity to show a completely different side of themselves, away from the tense PGA Tour environment inside the ropes.

We’ve seen glimpses of this in Netflix’s Full Swing series, but we want to see more of it.

There will need to be a lot of excitement each week of competition and a rivalry will have to build quickly if TGL is to capture the imagination of sports fans, especially when Woods and McIlroy are not in action.

You can’t achieve this with boring. The fans are turned off.

TGL is designed not only to provide a different form of entertainment and interaction, but also to attract fans from different sports help grow the game.

Many sports fans will have heard of the likes of Cameron Young and Shane Lowry, but a large percentage have not and that could be a big problem if they don’t understand much of it.

Even the runaway world number 1 Scottie Scheffler is participating in TGL, a player who has become extremely famous in the sporting world, not only for his incredible performances on the golf course, but also as a result of his shock arrest in the US. PGA Championship.

No Scheffler is a big blow to TGL in my opinion.

He was given the opportunity to participate, but seemingly came to the conclusion that hitting balls against a screen on Monday and Tuesday nights was not the wisest preparation for winning a third Green Jacket.

Scottie Scheffler won the FedEx Cup in 2024

And if sports fans were wondering where Bryson DeChambeau is, a player who has dramatically changed perceptions in recent times, he was banned from TGL as all LIV Golf players remain suspended by the PGA Tour.

I feel like if TGL wants to move forward in the long run, before I’ve even seen a ball hit, all of the game’s biggest superstars need to be in action, otherwise what’s the point?

That will undoubtedly feature in the PGA Tour’s talks with the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) as they continue to negotiate a deal to combine their commercial operations.

Bryson DeChambeau

My big fear is that if a number of interested gamblers aren’t fully convinced by TGL in the first week, it could quickly lose momentum.

It initially seemed to me that there was a lot of fuss around TGL when plans first emerged early last year, but it would be postponed twelve months later after the stadium roof collapsed, and I consider that a huge blow to them .

Not only did the roof of their stadium burst, but so did the TGL bubble.

That’s definitely the vibe I’m getting right now.

It almost seems like many people have simply forgotten about TGL and pushed it aside, especially considering that the PGA Tour and LIV Golf seem to be getting closer to some form of unification in the professional game.

Let’s face it: TGL was first put together by McIlroy, Woods and the PGA Tour in an attempt to stall LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman.

Greg Norman

TGL needs to come out with a bang and everyone needs to talk about it at work on January 8, 2025, for the right reasons.

That’s the main reason I’m baffled by TGL not sending out Woods and McIlroy in gameweek one.

Just as we first saw two and a half years ago at LIV Golf’s inaugural tournament at the Centurion Club in England, there is an element of curiosity in everyone to at least look inward and give something new a chance.

But I do get the sense that a large number of golf fans were either all in on LIV from the get-go in 2022, or completely turned off.

I’m not sure there was anything in between, even when the Saudi-funded circuit bought Jon Rahm for a reported $600 million last year.

That helped to some extent, but perhaps not as much as LIV Golf or Rahm expected.

Tiger Forest

So I firmly believe that TGL must give golf and general sports fans something to come back for every week if it is to be a success.

Big personalities, characters, ribbing and rivalries will contribute to that, but McIlroy and Woods will have to give it their all if it really wants to take off.

They are the only reason why the majority of fans will tune into this in the first place.

I certainly hope that TGL is an instant success, and I really applaud McIlroy and Woods for thinking outside the box and bringing something new to our sport.

The four-man team concept follows LIV Golf’s lead in many ways, but taking players outside the ropes into a much more casual golf environment is vastly different and offers plenty of intrigue.

TGL may have started with a bogey by leaving Woods and McIlroy on the sidelines for the first week, but and you could say that another one has been added in second place, given the price of a general admission ticketbut the beauty of our sport is that it is never too late to recover.

And if anyone knows that, it’s Tiger Woods.

**TGL LUMINAIRES 2025**
Date	Team	Team	Scoring
January 7	GC of New York	The Bay GC	TB
Jan 14	GC of Los Angeles	Jupiter Left GC	TB
January 21	GC of New York	Atlanta DriveGC	TB
January 27	Jupiter Left GC	Boston Common GC	TB
February 4	Boston Common GC	GC of Los Angeles	TB
February 17	Atlanta DriveGC	GC of Los Angeles	TB
February 17	Atlanta DriveGC	The Bay GC	TB
February 17	The Bay GC	Boston Common GC	TB
February 18	Jupiter Left GC	GC of New York	TB
February 24	GC of Los Angeles	GC of New York	TB
February 24	Boston Common GC	Atlanta DriveGC	TB
February 25	The Bay GC	Jupiter Left GC	TB
Mar 3	The Bay GC	GC of Los Angeles	TB
Mar 3	GC of New York	Boston Common GC	TB
Mar 4	Jupiter Left GC	Atlanta DriveGC	TB

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