Secret Tour Caddy: TGL is contrived, awkward and not proper golf

“What the hell is TGL?” said one of our crowd when someone else brought it up over dinner a while back.

But even the guy who knew what the hell it was, didn’t know what it stood for. Fortunately, Google did and so happy that we knew it stood for Tomorrow’s Golf League, we could then sit back and listen to its “selling points” which our helpful colleague then read out.

In case you’ve not seen it yet, it’s played in a purpose-built arena using a very high-tech simulator; the cast is six teams made up of four PGA Tour players (so a closed shop); it’s played over 15 holes made up of nine-hole foursomes matches (or threesomes I guess that should be) followed by six holes of singles; and it’ll all be done in two hours (good luck with that with Cantlay playing on the Atlanta Drive GC team).

All of this has actually turned out to be true as is the fact that people have actually paid the $160 ticket price to watch the whole thing live, even though that makes a 2025 Ryder Cup ticket look like the bargain of the century.

It’s also gone out live on prime-time TV in the States. Although I have not watched it, whether this has been “between the insomnia commercials” as our helpful colleague also suggested, I couldn’t possibly comment.

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What is the TGL Golf League? Mildly entertaining, but not proper golf

But going back to our dinner table that night, there wasn’t much enthusiasm for TGL, mainly because most of us could remember how excruciating the Hero Challenges they tried on the DP World Tour a few years ago were and how mercifully they died a quick death.

The reason for that was, we all agreed, that they weren’t proper golf and that no one who was press-ganged into playing (because effectively that’s what happened) actually cared about whether they won or not, nor did anyone ever turn up the wind to The Open level 9 (think Saturday Muirfield 2002). Again, all unlike proper golf.

What there was though was some half-decent banter and practice round humour between the players. But not even that was enough to make the thing even half-watchable. A couple of “episodes” in, TGL appears not to be much different, at least not through my old eyes.

It’s mildly entertaining (at least the highlights were), but it’s still not proper golf; there’s been no swearing, at least not yet. Shane Lowry was entertaining, Max Homa will be, but the rest of the players’ attempts at humour would put a glass to sleep.

The whole thing just looks contrived and awkward. So it’ll be interesting to see whether anyone who sat around the table when TGL was first brought up has actually ended up watching any of it because that night there was a “get tae f*** I will” from the cynic, a “you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, so I might” from the open-minded one, and a “YouTube highlights: maybe. But f***** if I’m staying up to watch it live” from the practical one.

All valid points. Either way, it’s hard to look past the best line of that night which was “Tomorrow’s Golf League? It’ll be Yesterday’s Golf League before too long.”

There’s many a true word spoken in jest.

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