After three blowout matches, TGL wanted some aggressive aptitude, and the start-up league acquired simply that on Monday evening.
Tiger Woods, Tom Kim, and Kevin Kisner of Jupiter Hyperlinks Golf Membership took down the closely favored Boston Frequent Golf Membership in additional time by a rating of 4-to-3. Boston arrived at its TGL debut with all three of its gamers ranked inside the prime 25 on the planet: four-time main winner Rory McIlroy, 2013 Masters champion Adam Scott, and present Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley. Alternatively, Jupiter Hyperlinks had a median world rating of 664 coming into Monday’s match.
However none of that mattered.
On quite a few events, Kim, the star of the present, stepped as much as the plate and delivered. He made a number of putts that wound up halving the opening. He additionally got here near recording the first hole-in-one in TGL historical past, as his ball settled simply two ft away from the pin on the twelfth gap. Three holes later, Kim nearly holed out from the sand for a birdie, a mere moments after leaving his third shot within the bunker. He did this all whereas yelling, screaming, and attractive the group, simply as he did on the Presidents Cup final September. Kim’s power is strictly what TGL wanted, particularly contemplating the snooze-fest the league’s third match turned into final week.
“I thrive in these crew environments, and it was so good to have good companions, skilled companions,” Kim mentioned.
“I’m simply so glad we acquired some extent immediately.”
Woods, who co-founded the league with McIlroy, was thrilled with how all the things turned out, particularly since his crew gained.
“[Kim] was unbelievable coming in right here,” Woods mentioned.
“We did some good work the opposite day, and immediately it couldn’t have been a extra pleasurable show of golf, banter. Everybody within the viewers was engaged. Hopefully, all of the viewership was engaged. We, as gamers, cherished it. That is what we had envisioned for TGL: to have an expertise like this, and I feel we delivered it.”
Certainly, this made-for-TV product lastly delivered. It had unpredictability, an important facet to this enterprise contemplating how whacky and theatrical golf can shortly grow to be. Followers need to see golf pictures and the place these pictures find yourself — a actuality that may by no means change for so long as individuals watch and play this sport. Monday’s match additionally had great banter, particularly from Woods and Kisner, who delivered a couple of one-liners that had everybody laughing. Oh, and Woods additionally recorded the primary shot-clock violation in TGL historical past, a joke that may write itself.
“I feel the character of competitors is you’re going to have some matches which are blowouts, and also you’re going to have some matches which are actually tight. I feel it was actually cool that tonight was a kind of matches that was actually tight. I feel the individuals within the area appeared to get pleasure from it, and hopefully the individuals at dwelling appeared to get pleasure from it, too,” McIlroy mentioned.
“However that doesn’t imply that there’s going to be different matches that mightn’t be as shut. It definitely helps from an leisure perspective to have it that evening, however that’s one thing that we are able to’t assure. That is competitors, as properly, on the finish of the day, and we’re all attempting to beat one another as greatest as we are able to.”
Contemplating TGL confronted some much-deserved criticism within the weeks after its debut, the league wanted a bounce-back on Monday. And by chance for golf’s latest enterprise, its most outstanding stars delivered in additional methods than one: followers noticed a aggressive match, loads of joshing, and on prime of all of it, everybody — from these on the SoFi Middle to these watching on ESPN — was entertained from begin to end.
Jack Milko is a golf workers author for SB Nation’s Enjoying By. Observe him on X @jack_milko.
