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| Billy Horschel made a birdie putt on the penultimate hole as Atlanta Drive GC beat New York GC to claim the inaugural TGL title in Florida As Billy Horschel's golf ball disappeared into the hole, the American celebrated by sprinting, leaping, swearing and chucking his club. It was an electrifying and animated move that became the signature moment of TGL's debut season. That downhill, snaking and ultimately successful putt helped land Horschel and his Atlanta Drive team-mates Patrick Cantlay and Justin Thomas victory against the franchise known as New York Golf Club. This was in the second of the best of three final series. The victors came from 3-0 down (a point is awarded for each hole won) to triumph 4-3 to take an unassailable 2-0 position. Such a dramatic finish was exactly what the Tech-infused Golf League needed - the sort of climax envisaged by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy when they bought into the idea of a raucous indoor simulator version of the game. The decisive putt, which involved a number of dramatic breaks, could be seen as a metaphor for an opening season that was far from straightforward. There were technical glitches, blowout matches, necessary rule changes and a mixture of reactions from golf fans. But somehow the TGL eventually hit its target. It yielded respectable television audiences, helped reveal players' personalities and engaged a somewhat younger audience. The median age for ESPN's viewership was 51 years old compared with the usual 63 for PGA Tour and LIV events deep for a project that boasts 11 of the world's top 15 golfers. The 1500 seat 250,000 square feet Sofi Centre venue on the Palm Beach State College campus cost $50m to build. And there are already thoughts of adding a second venue on America's west coast, although that would likely be years down the line. "We're in the middle of an expansion process now," said Mike McCarley, the TMRW executive who co-founded the project with Woods and McIlroy. "When exactly we make that decision - there's no timeline on it necessarily," McCarley added to the Palm Beach Post. "We've had potential expansion team owners at every single match this season coming to visit us. Some of them, multiple times. Some of them have a lot of questions, a lot of feedback." TGL already has the backing of leading American sports investors, who are behind the six teams that competed. They include the Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank (Atlanta Drive), John Henry and the Fenway Sports Group (Boston Common), New York Mets owner Steve Cohen (New York Golf Club), former Milwaukee Bucks owner Marc Lasry (The Bay Golf Club) and David Blitzer, who joined Woods' group that owns Jupiter Links. We really like those team owners that are operators of other sports teams and other professional leagues in their communities," McCarley said. "But we got a lot of really interesting diverse people domestically and internationally. They can kind of take a look and see what it looks like going forward." Former tennis great Serena Williams is co-owner of the Los Angeles team and her involvement prompts consideration over whether TGL missed a trick by not including some of the LPGA's top stars, such as Nelly Korda and Lydia Ko. Like LIV, TGL may struggle to win over traditional die-hard golf fans with its raucous environment, which is in stark contrast to the more genteel way golf is usually played. But the new league was not brought in for the benefit of that constituency. It is there to broaden golf's base. Significantly, the players seem to have enjoyed it and deem it worth incorporating into their early season schedules. "Obviously it is a little bit of a challenge with everything we've got going through the year with our own schedules, but I don't think anyone has ever walked away and said 'this felt like a burden'," Horschel stated after collecting his share of the $9m winners' spoils. "I could never imagine what this was going to be," the reigning BMW PGA champion added. "I remember coming into the arena in November and walking out and I was just in awe. I couldn't imagine what I was seeing. "I described it like a football player walking into Mercedes-Benz Stadium right about to play, a basketball player walking out - Steph Curry walking out at Oracle Arena, stuff like that. "Never imagined we'd be playing golf in an arena with a big simulator and people and music and chanting. It has been really cool and has sort of exceeded all of our expectations." |
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