Some of golf’s leading players swap the fairways for the virtual world as the high-tech, big-money and much-trumpeted TGL finally launches this week.
Here, the PA news agency looks at the competition and how it works.
What is TGL?
Tiger Woods is the other big name to have backed the TGL project (Richard Sellers/PA)
TGL is a new fast-paced, indoor team competition fronted by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy in which the action is played out on two highly sophisticated golf simulators.
Unofficially, it stands for Tomorrow Golf League but in all literature it is simply referred to as TGL.
It was due to launch last year but problems with the inflatable dome roof at its purpose-built arena, the SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, led to a 12-month delay.
Who is involved?
Tommy Fleetwood is also swapping the fairways for a virtual golf course (Zac Goodwin/PA)
As well as 15-time major winner Woods and McIlroy, as the faces of the venture, the competition features a number of elite players from the PGA Tour, split into six teams ostensibly representing different American cities.
Woods heads up Jupiter Links Golf Club, playing alongside Max Homa, Tom Kim and Kevin Kisner. World number three McIlroy is the star name for Boston Common Golf with his team-mates being US Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley, Hideki Matsuyama and Adam Scott.
The other teams are Atlanta Drive GC, Los Angeles Golf Club, New York Golf Club and The Bay Golf Club. Other notable players include Justin Thomas, Tommy Fleetwood, Collin Morikawa, Justin Rose, Matt Fitzpatrick, Rickie Fowler, Xander Schauffele, Ludvig Aberg and Shane Lowry.
How does the game play work?
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The SoFi Center houses a playing area roughly the size of a football pitch.
Half of the arena is dedicated to ‘screen play’, where players will hit balls from a natural surface towards a giant 64x53ft screen. Shots will be played from a grass tee box, fairway grass, rough or sand as appropriate.
When balls land within 50ft of the virtual pin, action then moves to the other half of the arena, or ‘green zone’. This features a mechanised 22,475 sq ft short-game area of which the dimensions, topography and pin position can be changed for each hole.
A crowd of 1,500 can view the play.
What is the competition format?
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Each competition day – Monday or Tuesday – features one match between two teams. Each team has a roster of four players with three featuring in each fixture.
Matches are split into two sessions – triples and singles, both matchplay. Triples is a three-on-three contest over nine holes with all players taking it in turns to play the same ball. Three singles contests are then played over six holes.
Each hole is worth one point. A nearest-the-pin ‘overtime’ competition is held in the event of a tie.
Teams are awarded two points for a victory and one for a loss in overtime, with nothing for a defeat in normal time. All teams play each other over the regular season with the top four in the table advancing to the play-offs.
What other innovations can we expect?
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Unconstrained by real-world limitations such as finance, geography, climate and terrain, the virtual course designers have promised some spectacular holes from fictional locations including coastal, tropical and desert landscapes.
Other new features include a shot clock, timeouts and the use of the ‘hammer’, with which teams can choose to double the value of a hole.
All players will wear microphones and a referee will enforce the rules.
What is the background to this?
Tiger Woods (left) and Rory McIlroy (right) have helped the competition get up and running (Richard Sellers/PA)TGL is an attempt to sell the sport to a new audience. It is the brainchild of sports media executive Mike McCarley, who teamed up with Woods and McIlroy in 2022 to found TMRW Sports to get the project up and running.
The company has attracted considerable private investment and TGL has a prize pot of £16.75million, with £7.9m for the winning team.
It has been in the making for some years and was not devised as a rival to LIV Golf, although it has come to be seen as such.