Tiger Woods has became the first player in the TGL to be penalised for a shot-clock violation. The new league, short for Tomorrow’s Golf League, is a recent creation with Woods among the founders.
However, he fell foul of one of the rules that wouldn’t apply on a traditional golf course. The golf simulator brings with it unique challenges, and a faster pace of play is certainly one of them.
Woods was preparing an eight-foot putt on the high-tech green at the SoFi Center. However, his allocated 40 seconds ran out and the buzzer sounded.
This resulted in a one-stroke penalty and prevented him from matching Rory McIlroy’s birdie, with the Northern Irish star – co-founder of TGL with Woods – representing Boston Common GC against the American icon’s Jupiter Links GC team.
After the penalty, Woods appeared frustrated as he left the green. Nevertheless, he had the last laugh against McIlroy, Adam Scott, and Keegan Bradley.
Scott, the 2013 Masters champion, sank a 31-foot birdie putt on the 14th hole to draw level for Boston. However, Tom Kim and Kevin Kisner won their nearest-the-pin shootouts, securing victory for Jupiter Links after the teams ended the regulation 15 holes tied at 3-3.
Reflecting on the innovative TGL golf experience, Woods shared his enthusiasm: “It is so different to normal golf. It was definitely different than when we first played. This is what we had envisioned for TGL, to have an experience like this, and I think we delivered. It couldn’t have been a more pleasurable display of golf, banter. Everyone in the audience was engaged. Hopefully all the viewership were engaged. We as players loved it.”
McIlroy also expressed great joy over the new event: “I’ve shared the course with him many times, and I’ve been in a couple of final groups with him, and he has just as much intensity out there tonight as he does when he’s trying to win a major championship or trying to finish.
“It’s been really cool to hear that a younger demographic, it’s sort of resonated with them. One of the visions when we started was to try to engage that younger demographic and give them a bite-sized version of golf that they could get into and understand, and hopefully we’ve done that.”
