Brooks Koepka hits a bunker shot at Augusta Nationwide throughout the Masters.
Getty Photographs
January is generally the time we begin to see photos of Augusta Nationwide. These commercials that play throughout massive sporting occasions for the upcoming Masters. Golf followers see them and salivate.
This January shall be no totally different, besides a part of Augusta Nationwide won’t simply play in commercials, however shall be on show way more typically. The sand used within the mixed-reality golf league, TGL, based by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, would be the identical pearly white sand we see professionals play from throughout the Masters each April.
This we all know because of the TGL Twitter account which posted a video of sand being dumped into what seems to be one of many bunkers that shall be utilized in SoFi Middle in early 2025. The account adopted that by clarifying the kind of sand — “SP55 Sand from North Carolina” — which is precisely the sort of granulated quartz within the bunkers at Augusta Nationwide.
Particulars like this about one of the well-known and unique golf programs on the earth are tough to come back by. The membership is notoriously non-public and requires distributors it does enterprise with to not disclose details about their relationship. However because of the LA Occasions, which produced a characteristic story in regards to the bunker sand on the Masters in 2020, we all know it to be true.
The story from the Occasions dove deep into the sand, why it’s so shiny, and even shared how Tiger Woods had three truckloads of it dropped at his dwelling in Florida, the place Woods has his personal follow facility. Maybe it’s no shock then that Woods’ league, which kicks off Jan. 7, would use the identical sort of sand.
That sand, oddly sufficient, is byproduct of the mining course of for different supplies, akin to mica and feldspar. That has made it straightforward to accumulate, based on the Occasions, because the early 70s when Augusta Nationwide co-founder Cliff Roberts determined the membership needed new sand in its bunkers.
Although Augusta Nationwide just isn’t enthusiastic about commenting on the sand it makes use of, TGL clearly is. The forthcoming league has at all times been billed as a simulator golf league, and that’s very true to an extent. Gamers will hit pictures right into a 3,400 sq. foot simulator display screen, imagining their method via laptop generated golf holes. However the turf they’ll be taking part in pictures from is actual. And the pictures they’ll play inside of fifty yards will happen and not using a display screen. And the bunker sand they’ll play from, that’ll be actual, too.
The league’s first season schedule was launched Monday and can characteristic 15 nights of matches on both ESPN or ESPN2. For extra on that and ticket information, click on right here.
