TGL’s best first-night success may even be its largest problem

After over a yr of hype and publicity, together with untold tens of millions in funding and bills, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s enviornment golf league, the TGL, lastly arrived Tuesday evening on ESPN.

Polarizing is the primary phrase that involves thoughts after the two-hour inaugural match that noticed Ludvig Aberg and The Bay Golf Membership hammer (sure, that’s a TGL pun) New York Golf Membership 9-2.

There was no scarcity of opinions in regards to the debut of Woods and McIlroy’s imaginative and prescient.

Some praised the quick tempo, progressive expertise, and laid-back environment that allowed gamers to indicate extra of their personalities than they do underneath match situations. Others demanded somebody take the thought behind a shed and snuff it out of existence earlier than the 15-hole match concluded.

Therein lies the largest win from TGL’s opening evening. It’s one thing not simply replicable. It’ll even be the important thing to making sure the league grows into what Woods and McIlroy envision and doesn’t simply slowly fade into irrelevancy.

It made golf followers really feel one thing.

At the very least for one evening.

That’s highly effective. It’s additionally scarcer than we’d like. Golf nonetheless has a handful of occasions — the majors, the Ryder Cup, the Solheim Cup, some big-time Tour occasions — that stir the soul. However there are many weeks that golf followers are underwhelmed by vanilla course setups, watered-down fields and disappointing TV protection.

All of which might result in a sense of pro-golf apathy.

However TGL? On Evening 1, the brand-new league had golf followers flocking to their tv units to see one thing distinctly completely different.

It delivered on completely different, and that wasn’t for everybody. Half of my texts have been from buddies dismissing this as “not golf” or asking me: “Who is that this for?” The opposite half have been from individuals who discovered it enjoyable, goofy, entertaining, and value one other watch.

On a Tuesday in January, three months from a return to Augusta Nationwide, golf followers bought to be invested in and care about one thing. Not the 9-2 drubbing Bay Golf laid on New York GC. That’s irrelevant except it results in Steve Cohen taking among the cash he gave Juan Soto and sliding it Scottie Scheffler’s method to get NYGC heading in the right direction.

However golf followers hadn’t had one thing they really cared about for the reason that closing spherical of the 2024 Open, and the TGL, a minimum of for one evening, gave them that on an in any other case useless Tuesday in January.

Did you want Shane Lowry strolling out to “Snap Yo’ Fingers” or Xander Schauffele hitting with DMX enjoying within the background? Perhaps the completely different holes (some good, some very dangerous) piqued your curiosity. Maybe you cackled at NBA referee Derrick Stafford getting concerned. (Can we even want a ref for the shot clock? Doesn’t it simply make a noise?)

You might need hated all of it. There are undoubtedly kinks for TGL to work out. It wasn’t good; start-ups on Day 1 by no means are. The broadcast has to get higher. The DJ Khaled stuff must be ejected into the solar. And may we please give FedEx an actual hammer if they will sponsor one of many recreation’s key elements?

However the TGL, with Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy not enjoying, drove dialog and delivered pleasure, intrigue, humor, and/or disgust on Evening 1.

That’s a win.

The novelty may put on off after the primary few matches. There’s an excellent likelihood that after Woods and McIlroy play their first matches, the shine can have worn off, and everybody will return to their regularly-scheduled programming till golf season really heats up.

But when TGL desires to have endurance, it’ll have to discover a method to proceed making golf followers really feel one thing. That doesn’t all people has to love it. Nor does it imply it has to take itself too significantly. I’d argue it ought to do the alternative and lean into the absurdity and enjoyable.

No matter comes subsequent, the league’s future success hinges on giving golf followers a cause to care — one thing they’ve been craving, however can’t all the time discover.