Tiger Woods falls in TGL debut, broadcast still rocky in new league’s second night

Look, we’re not going to say that TGL, the tech-infused indoor golf league, is playing right down the middle … but Tiger Woods walked out for his TGL debut to “Eye of the Tiger.” That’s about as safe and on-the-nose as you can get.

Woods helped create TGL, and his appearance on the new league’s second night was the key draw. But even though he had more majors than everyone else on the course combined and quadrupled, Woods couldn’t rally his Jupiter Links Golf Club to victory, falling to L.A. Golf Club 12-1.

Tuesday night marked just the second time Woods has played competitive golf, in any form, since 2024’s Open Championship. And like that previous event — the parent-child PNC Championship, where Woods played with son Charlie and used a cart in December — TGL was a low-impact, low-stress variant of golf.

Woods claimed the honor of teeing off to start the night, and striped his opening drive. Unfortunately, that was the best he and Jupiter performed for the early stretch of holes. Kevin Kisner, one of Woods’ two teammates, played like he was ready for the broadcast booth. Max Homa, Jupiter’s third, was steadier, but wasn’t given much to work with as L.A. posted a 5-0 lead through the first three holes.

With team owners Serena Williams and Alexis Ohanian in attendance, L.A.’s trio — Justin Rose, Collin Morikawa and Sahith Theegala — rode a combination of precise approaches, long putts and Jupiter mistakes to the early lead. Rose in particular seemed to enjoy the crowd element, drawing on his Ryder Cup attitude to weather a clearly pro-Tiger crowd.

Woods was clearly more in the mood for gamesmanship; he threw the hammer — doubling the hole’s point value — before he even teed off. After rolling in a long putt on the 5th, Woods called a timeout attempting to ice Rose before a tying putt. (It didn’t work, Rose drilled the putt, wagging a Mutombo-style finger at his opponents and the booing crowd.)

Jupiter finally won the 6th on a concession to get on the board, but Theegala drained a long putt on No. 7 to split the hole and snap whatever fragile momentum Jupiter managed. Rose followed that up with a long clutch putt on No. 8 to claim the hole and stake LAGC to a 6-1 lead.

The nine-hole triples portion of TGL wrapped with an unfamiliar sight: Woods missing a par putt to split the hole. With the hammer in play, that gave LAGC an 8-1 lead heading into singles.

On his final hole of the night, Kisner provided the match’s most ridiculous moment, drilling the flagstick on an attempted sand save. And then he nearly rolled in the long comebacker, but still surrendered the hole.

Theegala closed out the match with a magnificent tee shot that Homa conceded, and LAGC stormed to the most dominant victory in TGL’s two-match history.

Despite the in-house audience, TGL is primarily a TV-based enterprise, and from that perspective, the product still needs work. ESPN doesn’t yet appear to have decided whether the tone of this should be serious or jovial, and so the coverage pinballs between the reverential and the silly. TGL ought to be the equivalent of a televised beer-pong match, not a PGA Tour event, and ESPN ought to lean into that strangeness rather than, say, seriously trying to compare LAGC to the Lakers dynasty.

TGL also brings one of the most cringeworthy elements of PGA Tour broadcasts indoors: interviews with sponsor executives. It doesn’t really matter in this case that the executives are famous athletes; a segment with Serena Williams — who clearly has little interest in golf — was a tough listen.

The audience, too, doesn’t translate well to TV. In the arena, the fans are loud and the music pulses; on TV, the echoes and empty spaces are much more apparent. Golf fans who watched TGL did get a bit of satisfaction, however, out of the fact that the Duke-Miami game was moved to ESPN News for the end of TGL; all too often, golf has been subservient to college basketball on the broadcast hierarchy.

TGL returns next week with Xander Schauffele’s New York Golf Club playing Justin Thomas’ Atlanta Drive Golf Club. New York lost in a blowout in TGL’s first match; Atlanta has not yet played. Woods’ Jupiter Links is scheduled to return on Jan. 27 when Rory McIlroy’s Boston Common Golf Club makes its debut.

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