What’s a TGL match really like? We were there on opening night

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — Rarely has a room exuded such curiosity. In the minutes before the arena golf league named TGL began, that is what filled the SoFi Center. The cocktail of giddiness, skepticism and novelty known as curiosity.

All types of people brought it, their active eyes bouncing around the stadium floor. Billionaire owners, pro athletes, Instagram influencers, golf dads and their children; even Rory McIlroy, with his unbuttoned knit shirt and sneakers, peering over Wyndham Clark’s warmup routine. SoFi Center bubbled over with questions: How do all these gizmos work? How loud would LOUD be? There goes a camera on wheels, with no operator. There goes the sand man with his broom, cleaning up after a bunker shot. There goes a 2,000-pound plank of real grass. Hey, there goes Tiger Woods! 

Thirty minutes before showtime, Woods stood in his own 30-foot bubble, right at the center of this curiosity. His arms were crossed and his feet spread wide — contemplation in a power stance. You wouldn’t blame a co-founder of this mixed-reality madness for being a bit introspective as it had finally come to life.

Woods has been explaining this space to people for years now. Back in 2022 when this 49-year-old was just 46, he signed away a decent chunk of his future golf to this simulated stuff, launching TGL’s parent company, TMRW Sports. He then showed up with a shovel in hand for the “breaking ground” photo-op about six months later. He then saw the original infrastructure — an inflated dome — go up in the wind, literally, just nine months after that. Who answers questions for calamities like this? Woods did, at various press conferences. 

Before long, Woods found himself on the second-level of this permanent building, the curiosity quieted as the lights dimmed. Broadcasters, ball boys and girls, event staff — the referee! — shuffled into position. Woods leaned forward in his first-row seat, next to TV executive Mike McCarley, the man who dreamed most of this up, only to watch Bay Golf Club’s Irishman Shane Lowry walk through a smokey tunnel to the timeless hit, “Snap Yo Fingers”. 

Just as weird as many of us had hoped. 

Even if you didn’t have Lowry walking out to Lil’ Jon on your opening night Bingo card, the debut of the league showed it can live up to its futuristic promises. The best golfers in the world are going to hop from the Screen Zone to the Green Zone (and back) at an incredibly rapid pace. They’re not going to wait for approaches to miss the green before their teammates begin analyzing the grain of the turf and the mounds they’ll be chipping into. When one make-believe hole ends, a flyover video for the next one soon takes off. From Serpeant to The Spear to Set in Stone, you’re taken on a slightly dizzying ride. 

On a night where media wracked their brains for the best description of this place, it was New York Golf Club’s Rickie Fowler who offered the best one: “It’s a glorified man cave, in a way.”

There are owner’s boxes with comfy leather seats, like what you see in English football. There’s the ever-present shot clock and LED screens streaming instant shot info, highlights, even the sounds of a quickening heartbeat. Of course, there are also the $18 mixed drinks, just like Yankee Stadium. A bottle of water sets you back a fiver because walking into SoFi Center, like any other modern sporting event, is to surrender yourself to capitalism, marketing and inflation. The rumored price to build the arena is $50 million. Logos for KPMG, FedEx, Best Buy and SoFi swirl around the room.

Perhaps the most important promise delivered by TGL is the one repeatedly offered by its roster of players in recent weeks: that the arena is more impressive than they thought it could be. That the connective tissue between mixed realities and music and the shape-shifting green is more seamless than they imagined and the frenetic pace simply feels more … fun than they ever dreamed this sport could be.

“Honestly, I said last night when I got home,” Lowry began, “because I, like everyone else, didn’t know what this was going to be like. And I came here and I played my first proper, full practice match last night, and I went away going, ‘That was the most fun two hours I’ve ever had on the golf course.’

“The last time I’ve had that much fun tonight was probably last September [at the Ryder Cup].”

Now, the question everyone will ask is one Shane Lowry isn’t allowed to answer: Is it worth your $200 ticket? That depends entirely on how much $200 means to you. Not many $200 experiences can get you this close to the action and skills of the best in the world without also hammering you with sunburn, heat exhaustion or … boredom.

Critics may say the arena isn’t nearly as important to the league’s success as its television product, and the marketing teams would have to agree. The vast majority of those who experience TGL will do so through their devices. But it’s in person where you realize how important a duality of product really is. No, TGL’s billionaire backers are not making a return on investment via the 1,000 or so people who will attend match nights this spring. But butts in seats matter to the aura of the arena that ESPN is transporting sports fans to from home. It was reported last week that TGL was paying people to attend. It was later reported that was mostly for the dress rehearsals. No matter what, the point remains. TGL needs people in SoFi Center creating sound and an aspirational sense of place. People who want to cheer at good shots, groan at bad ones and even boo Xander Schauffele when he flubs a chip. 

“They had good reason to boo. I probably would have booed me, too,” Schauffele joked. But Ludvig Aberg, the star of the night in a 9-2 Bay Golf Club victory, wasn’t kidding about the jealousy he feels of his pro basketball and football friends.

“I think it’s really cool to be in a crowded environment where the people are literally on top of you and screaming,” Aberg said. “There’s a lot of betting going on, so you’ll hear some guy saying, don’t miss it, don’t do that. I think that’s really cool … When I watch other sports, that’s what I really like.”

Did Aberg have fans literally on top of him and screaming? Not exactly. Growing and sustaining a semblance of that falls on the event staff moving forward, because for all it has, there is some the TGL certainly lacks. Television breaks are never fun for in-stadium audiences, but there was little else to distract spectators from the fact that, between the 3rd and 4th holes, the next few minutes were obviously going to the advertisers.

The mic’d up players — yapping with their teammates about spin rates and chiding their opponents for missed putts. That’s the good stuff, right? Only the TV audience knows. Organizers are working to develop earpieces spectators can use to actually listen in on the conversations happening 30 yards away. You don’t want FOMO calls coming from within the house.

When that tech officially arrives, TGL may reach its peak, a long list of promises about a tech-infused league finally realized. Until then, Night 1 set the table for something really good with obvious room for growth. Especially in the short term.

“We’ve got Tiger Woods [playing] next week,” Lowry said. “So we’ll do all right next week, I know that.”