The inaugural occasion on the Golfzon Tour can pay a first-place prize of $150,000.
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The programs are digital. The competitors is actual.
The game is display golf, and the world’s largest platform for it’s the GTour, a South Korean circuit that has been in operation since 2012, staging greater than 200 tournaments and handing out some $12 million in prize cash.
Now, the corporate behind that skilled simulator league is bringing the idea west.
On Tuesday, Golfzon America, the U.S. offshoot of the South Korean simulator large, introduced the launch of the Golfzon Tour, which can kick off its first event this fall.
The competitors will characteristic 12 five-player groups from the USA (Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Louisville, Minneapolis, New York Metropolis, Orlando and Tulsa), Toronto, London and Monterrey, Mexico, with regional matches in October giving solution to playoffs in November, and the Tour Finals contested in January on the 2025 PGA Present, in Orlando, the place the profitable workforce will share the $150,000 first-place prize. The playoffs and finals can be broadcast on Golfzon’s YouTube channel and the Golfzon Tour’s official web site.
“The purpose is to make it as aggressive and interesting as we presumably can,” mentioned Steve Brown, director of selling for Golfzon America.
Although Golfzon isn’t new to the USA — it opened its first outlet right here in 2016 and has grown to round 140 places all through the nation — solely just lately did an American screen-golf circuit strike the corporate as a viable thought.
“There had all the time been a need to convey the tour over right here,” Brown mentioned. “It was a matter of permitting the U.S. market to maturate to the place we may really make this factor occur. If we tried this two or three years in the past, I don’t assume we’d have had the business footprint for this factor. And I’m undecided U.S. customers have been understanding of the idea.”
Any lingering doubts pale with the start of TGL, the indoor televised golf league backed by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, which, after a 12 months delay, is slated to debut on ESPN in January.
“The entire bringing of TGL over right here was a fairly sturdy indicator that we have been able to do our personal model of this factor,” Brown mentioned.
In contrast to South Korea’s GTour, which revolves round particular person competitions, the Golfzon Tour will depend on a cumulative rating, workforce match-play format, and round-robin brackets impressed by the faculty soccer playoff system. Modifications of that sort, Brown mentioned, are a part of an try to “Americanize a Korean product” to make it extra accessible to a western market.
“That was one thing we gave loads of thought to,” Brown mentioned. “How will we ‘culturalize’ this in the appropriate means.”
The groups themselves can be a cross-section of regional expertise, chosen by Golfzon places in every of the taking part cities. Anybody 18 or over, male or feminine, is eligible. Preliminary matches can be organized by area, too, in order that opposing groups are every competing on their residence turf, however in related time-zones.
For this inaugural event, Brown mentioned, all 12 groups can be invited to the Tour Finals in Orlando, with Golfzon protecting the journey prices for the highest two seeds. As a part of its event protection, Brown mentioned that Golfzon plans to “assist individuals get to know the gamers” by spotlighting their private {and professional} backgrounds, a promotional system utilized in competitions starting from the Summer season Olympics to “Survivor.”
“We need to faucet into their tales, and permit them to construct their manufacturers,” Brown mentioned.
Although no tournaments have been scheduled past this primary occasion, Brown assured that the tour would proceed, with the all however sure addition of a junior screen-golf tour.
“In no world are we going to undergo all we’ve got to get this off the bottom, after which simply mud our fingers off and stroll away,” he mentioned. “There are such a lot of methods you may take this idea. It’s going to develop and evolve. At this level, we’re pondering, Okay what do years two, three and 4 appear like.”
