On the eve of TGL’s beginning, our start stuttered.
Me, via text: “You still good to help? Will be fun.”
Him: “Yep what am i supposed to watch it on”
Me: “ESPN”
What’s a TGL match really like? We were there on opening night
Him: “how do i get that”
Good question.
Of course, there were others Monday, when the star-fronted, star-backed, Star Wars-like golf-in-an-arena league teed off. What would the play of Tiger and friends be like? Would it be crisp? What would the simulator be like? Would it be real? What would the rotating green be like? Would it be pure? What about the fans? And the vibe? And the broadcast? On and on and on. And pundits far and wide, along with up and down your Twitter scroll, have opined, including on this website, and you can peruse our wonderfully written dispatches here and here and here and here. They’re excellent distillations of the action.
But should you want to determine whether this thing will actually birdie or bogey, the source you should check is a member of the audience TGL is sincerely trying to lasso.
Someone young.
Like a teen. Like a 20-something. Folks who consume golf content just as much as anyone else, but in a whole host of newfangled ways. This group might not watch 2 seconds of, say, the Butterfield Bermuda Championship on Golf Channel, but they might tune in for TGL for 2 hours on ESPN, if done well.
Of course, that’s if they can find the channel, which, as I learned, was actually unsurprising.
The back-and-forth at the top of this article was with my 16-year-old nephew, Mason. He’s been in this space before. I’m naturally a fan of his. And he’s a fan of golf. While seeing him over the holidays, we played in some manner nine (9) times — in frigid Wisconsin. He’s exactly whom TGL craves, so he agreed to watch the broadcast and talk with me afterward, and that conversation is below. Notably, despite a lot of hype, he knew only the general concept about what he was going to view.
Nor was he itching with anticipation.
Mason, via text, at 8:52 p.m. ET, 8 minutes before the start: “i’m not home right now i’ll be home in a minute.”
Me: “It starts in 5 minutes!”
Mason: “8 and i’ll be home”
Me: “Hurry!”
Two hours later, I called him. The parts where I speak are in italics.
The immediate takeaways — ‘Rickie was kind of weird’
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“Hello,” Mason murmurs.
Thanks for watching. You ready?
“Mmhmm.”
All right, the first question is really, really basic.
“OK.”
And feel free to talk as long as you want.
“Mmhmm.”
But what did you think?
“Um, I don’t know, I think you overhyped it a little bit. [More on this later.] I mean, well, I liked it. It was really fast at the beginning, and I guess a little bit more fun at the beginning and then it kind of slowed down. But I don’t know, I guess I was — like, I liked it a lot, but I don’t know. I think I was expecting a little more. And the mics were — they talked about the mics being a big part of it, and then they only talked about the hot mics and they only showed them a couple of times. But I still liked it.”
What did you like best?
“I liked that green. And that they could give each other putts and it would be like if you’re out scrambling with your friends or something, like you just give them a putt. I like that.”
What did you like the least?
“Um, I don’t know. I guess how slow it went. But I don’t know how to talk about that.”
Am I right in saying that all the new stuff at first made it seem fast and then later, just because you got used to how it looked, it got down to just golf? Is that kinda right?
“I mean, yeah. I think people got used to it and they would keep trying to put it in your face all the stuff that they were using, and it just kind of dulled out a little bit.”
What was the funniest part?
“Um, I don’t know. I guess when Xander [Schauffele] had to chip twice. He chipped from the green and he chunked it to the other side and then he like duffed it again.”
What was the weirdest part?
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“Um, I don’t know. It’s not really a part, but I noticed that Rickie was kind of weird. I’m not calling him weird, but the whole time he kind of seemed off. Everyone else was making jokes and stuff and then Rickie was kind of like in his own world, I guess. He talked a little bit, but every time someone would talk to him or something, he would just give a one-word response. But I don’t really know what else was weird.”
What was the most skibidi (fellow olds, please look this up)?
“OK.”
Had to do it.
“That better not go on the website, I’m serious.”
The action — ‘Of all the people they interviewed, I thought it was weird’
On a scale of 1-10, how did you like the golf part alone?
“I mean, I don’t know, I always like watching professionals play because every shot goes straight when they want it to. So like an 8 or 9.”
On a scale of 1-10, how did you like the whole simulator part of it?
“That part was sick. I want to play it. Like a 10.”
That actually goes into my next question. I’m wondering when you were watching it, were you maybe more interested in wanting to play it one day, or were you more interested to see how the pros would do?
“I don’t really care how they do. I just thought that this was sick. I mean, Xander’s one of my favorites; I like him. I like Rickie. I mean, that was cool watching them, but, I don’t know, I think the whole arena, that was pretty cool.”
On a scale of 1-10, how did you like the presentation, meaning the broadcast and the graphics and stuff like that?
“I don’t know. There was only one camera sort of at the start where the players looked bad, but other than that, I think it was really good. The intermissions were really slow and it kind of brought away from it. But I liked how they brought up Tiger and Rory [McIlroy] and they interviewed them. DJ Khaled, which was unexpected. I thought it went pretty well.”
What did you think of DJ Khaled?
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“That was kind of weird. I don’t really know. Of all the people they interviewed, I thought it was weird.”
On a scale of 1-10, what did you think of the banter, the back and forth between the players?
“Um, there wasn’t as much as I expected. I thought there’d be more. But it was pretty cool. Like the timeout that they took to ice Xander. I thought there would be a little more, but it was fun.”
Viewing habits — ‘I don’t watch just raw on cable’
What did you know about this going into today?
“I knew that there were a bunch of pros divided up into teams that were going to play on a simulator and a big, rotating green.”
That was about it, right?
“Yeah.”
Were any of your friends talking about this?
“I mean, no. There was a little on TikTok and stuff about how there was like a bunker and you would hit into a big screen that’s like 100 times the size as a regular one. But I didn’t really know anything else.”
I hate to know this answer, but did you read any of the GOLF Magazine stories about this?
“No.”
Hmm, that’s OK. How does this compare to the golf that you normally watch, like the Grant Horvat stuff, the Good Good guys, the Fore Play guys? (He notably has a Fore Play headcover.)
“Obviously it’s a little more professional and stuff. Obviously they’re better. When you’re watching a YouTube video, they’re all friends and there isn’t as much on the line. To me, the mics and the hot mics and some of the stuff seemed a little bit not forced, but I don’t know if it was all natural. The YouTube stuff, I’m not saying it’s 100 percent raw, but it’s a little more relaxed, I guess, and they’re just out there filming and shooting. And this is broadcast on television and there’s an arena and stuff like that.”
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Is that the biggest appeal to you for like the Good Good guys and the Fore Play guys and Grant Horvat?
“I think Good Good and Grant, they’re all younger, and I don’t know about the rest of the people that watch them that are my age, but when I’m older, obviously I’m not going to be a golf content creator, but I would like to be the same skill level as them. I think the appeal is they’re young and doing what they want and they’re good at what they do.”
Do you think after watching TGL tonight, you’d want to watch more pro golf on NBC or CBS or Golf Channel?
“Um, I don’t know. I’m not a fan of the commercials and stuff, but yeah, probably.”
Do you watch any pro golf?
“Yeah, a little bit, but not on like cable.”
Yeah, that’s a good point. Where do you watch it then?
“Like clips or reruns. On YouTube, you can find all of Scottie Scheffler’s shots when he won the Masters, or you can find all of Hideki’s shots. [Hideki Matsuyama.] I like watching that. That’s usually what I watch. I don’t watch just raw on cable.”
What would it take for you to watch traditional television golf, or is that just not possible? You just like watching multiple highlights like that?
“I mean, no, there’s nothing — it’s just sitting in the living room versus sitting in my room. There’s nothing stopping me from watching it; it just doesn’t come into my mind like, let me go into live television and put on the Golf Channel.”
If I hadn’t asked you to watch this tonight, would you have watched it?
“I mean, I knew that it was going on. I didn’t know when. If I didn’t watch it tonight, I probably would’ve watched something about it another night.”
Be completely honest, are you going to watch it again?
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“Um, yeah.”
You serious?
“Yeah, I think I will.”
Would you watch it two months from now?
“Maybe. Depends who’s playing in it.”
Questions for me
What questions do you have for me?
“Did you like it?”
I did. I thought it was different and fast-paced at the start. For me, there was a lot of trying to figure out what this all was very quickly and then the golf itself was very fast, so I thought that was very fun to watch. But then once it got into it, it was golf golf again. I think it’s an addition to the landscape, but I don’t know if it wholly differentiates itself. But it was golf in January. You mentioned you like to watch pro golf because you like to watch great shots. Like, I don’t know if that plays out in simulators as much. They also say, if you look at other leagues that have just started, you won’t really know for like 15, 20 years if this is going to work. It’s a process. That said, attention spans are so low, does it last more than two years? To carve out a space when there are soooo many options will be the trick. And when kids your age are going elsewhere to get their content, I don’t know. What else you got?
“What did you think was the funniest part?”
What did I think was the funniest part? Hmm. I laughed when Shane Lowry said he wants to be the Scottie Scheffler of indoor golf.
“Oh, yeah.”
That was good. What else?
“Are you ready to lose to me the next time you play me?”
Oh, I see. [Editor’s note: He’s NEVER won, though the author is afraid the day is fast approaching.] I don’t know if I can put that into a published story. Hard to say. I got a question for you: Have you listened to any of Nelly Korda’s tips? [Editor’s note: Last November, at the CME Group Tour Championship, I asked Korda for a tip for Mason to help him break 80 consistently.]
“Um, yeah, I use an alignment stick every time now.”
Tiger Woods has already hit the best shot in TGL’s short history
All right, last question. After all that we talked about here, on a scale of 1-10, what’s your number for what you saw tonight?
“Maybe a six and a half.”
That’s decent. Tell me why.
“I think you overhyped it a little bit. [Editor’s note: Thinking about this a day later, I realized I’ve never asked him to watch golf like this before, so I understand what he’s saying here.]”
I don’t know. The main point of this is, you’re the audience they’re trying to get. I mean, they sort of care about me, but I’m going to watch golf regardless, because it’s my job. I’m really curious to know what you thought.
“I mean, I liked it, but I think it got repetitive. OK, these guys are pros, and it’s like, it’s a par-5, they’re going to hit the fairway, lay up, go to the green and two-putt, or they’re going to get up and down, and they’re going to be like, wow, nice shot. And then I don’t know. It was that every hole. I’m not asking for them to shank the ball or kill someone in the crowd or skull it over the green. Then it’s like, OK, let’s go to the big, rotating green, and, oh, by the way, there’s 600 bolts or whatever under this green — they said that a lot, and I was like, OK.
Would it be more fun for you if each one of the teams had one of the Fore Play guys on it or something like that?
“Oh, yeah, I think if they had — especially in alternate shot — they had one guy who was bad. Not even from Fore Play. If they brought in some random guy from the crowd that’s like an 8-handicap, I think that would be good.”
All right, this was fun. Thanks for doing it. A little nervous you weren’t going to watch.
“Yeah, I found it.”
When’s the last time you used a channel guide and watched cable?
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