PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — Tiger Woods hasn’t competed in professional golf since July 2024, but he celebrated a victory on Tuesday night like it was any one of his 15 majors or 82 PGA Tour wins.
Tom Kim, his TGL teammate for the Jupiter Links Golf Club, sunk a hole-in-one on the penultimate hole of a win-and-in match against the Bay Golf Club at the Sofi Center in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
Woods, who did not play any of Jupiter’s five matches this season due to his recovery from a ruptured Achilles and lumbar disc replacement surgery last year, gave his patented roar and fist pump to an excited crowd of 1,500 them embracing Kim after his 138-yard ace backed into the hole.
The difference between this experience and the rest in Woods’ historic career is the camaraderie with teammates. He’s competed in eight Ryder Cups, but the TGL, an indoor simulation golf league he co-founded with Rory McIlroy in 2022, offers the chance to play with the same guys each year.
“If you asked all these guys on the various teams what makes the experience, I think it’s just being with your teammates,” Woods told The Post.
“We don’t get a chance to do that very often. Once a year if you’re on the U.S. Team (in the Ryder or Presidents Cup), but not on a more routine basis like we are here with TGL.”
Max Homa, Kevin Kisner and alternate Akshay Bhatia, whose FaceTime call sparked a jubilant chorus from his teammates in the media room, round out the rest of the Jupiter roster that cracked the TGL playoffs after missing out in the inaugural season.
Instead of 18 holes, TGL matches are consolidated into 15 for a two-hour primetime slot on ESPN. The format is three-against-three alternate shot for the first nine holes followed by singles for the final six — all played on a football-field sized surface to sustain fan engagement.
Woods’ conception for TGL was to appeal to a younger, more restless generation of golf fans — and Kim’s triumph on Tuesday manifested that vision with an epic viral moment.
“This is what we set out to do with TGL: We tried to grow the game, we tried to do it differently,” Woods said. “We don’t normally play golf at 9:00 to 11:00 at night, so to be able to do this out here and to have this showcase, to have this group of guys, to be able to do what we did at the end, to have a hole-in-one, that’s what it was all about.”
Jupiter Links advances to play Boston Common Golf, McIlroy’s team, on March 17 in the semifinal round. Woods, who has no timetable for his return, will be there continuing to support, mentor and analyze play for his teammates.
“Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to play, but I’ve been here with these guys and have rooted and cheered and pulled for them,” Woods said.
The format strips away the individual nature of golf as each player must strategize and compete with one another in order to be successful. Woods’ team exhibited that ethos with three-straight hole victories from Homa, Kim and Kisner to close out the match and complete a comeback.
Kim’s last win at the 2023 Shriners Children’s Open made him the youngest three-time PGA Tour winner since Woods in 1997. Now, he’s aligned with the sport’s paragon in a different way.
“We’re starting now to have more team events, and you probably never see Tiger celebrate that much for another person to have a hole-in-one,” Kim said.
As for where this moment ranks amongst Woods’ laurels, it was his “best indoor experience ever.”