Xander Schauffele is making his season debut twice in the span of seven days at venues separated by a lot more than some 5,000 miles.
One is at The Sentry, the season opener on the PGA Tour that starts Thursday on hilly terrain in Maui with endless views of the Pacific Ocean. Schauffele knows what to expect at Kapalua having won the tournament six years ago with a 62 in the final round.
The other starts next Tuesday inside a 250,000-square-foot building on the campus of Palm Beach State College, a technological wonder when it comes to golf and a game that will only look familiar because of the players involved.
This one makes Schauffele curiously excited.
It’s the debut of the TMRW Golf League (TGL), a six-team league featuring Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy among 24 players — 13 of them major champions — in fast-paced, two-hour matches to be televised in primetime on ESPN platforms.
“I’ve been in there twice and played a mock match, and there was still a wow factor — even the second time around with lights and the stadium and really big screens,” said Schauffele, who plays for New York Golf Club.
“It’s different from what they’ll see from a conventional standpoint.”
It’s team golf played indoors in the SoFi Center, a combination of simulator golf and actual shots to a huge putting surface that can rotate 360 degrees to change angles and slopes for different shots.
New York takes on The Bay Golf Club (San Francisco) in the opener Tuesday at 9 p.m. EST. Three players from the four-man teams compete in 15-hole matches — nine holes of alternate shot and six holes of singles, with each player going two holes.
Woods and his Jupiter Links face Los Angeles on Jan. 14. The schedule was created to mesh with players’ tour schedule. The top four teams advance to the playoffs, and the best-of-3 championship series is two weeks before the Masters.
The team winning the SoFi Cup gets $9 million.
TGL is a product of TMRW Sports, the entertainment group of which Woods and McIlroy are co-founders. It hopes to appeal to a new audience, and even traditionalists, in an arena that can hold 1,500 fans.
Players hit off real grass (or sand, the same used in bunkers at Augusta National) from 35 yards away into a screen 64 feet wide and 53 feet high. Architects have pitched in to design 30 holes that will be used at given times during the competition. For shots 50 yards or closer, players hit actual shots into the green.
The TV window is two hours, and the competition includes a 40-second shot clock. This should move quickly, another element that sets it apart from traditional golf.
“It’s nothing like we’ve ever seen before, especially in golf,” McIlroy said.
“I see this as being complementary to everything else that is going on in the world of golf,” he said. “I’m still a traditionalist in a lot of ways. … But I think there are certain things that we can do to innovate and try to appeal to a different and younger demographic, especially trying to condense it into a time frame that is a little bit more digestible and putting it on at a time where we’re maybe going to get a few more eyeballs.”
TGL is a year behind schedule. It was supposed to debut at the start of 2024 until a power outage caused damage to the inflatable dome structure. With another year to plan, organizers went with a permanent arena that features locker rooms, dazzling lights and the massive screen. Electronic boards on both sides of the screen show the score, shot clock and yardages.
The entire playing area is nearly the size of a football field.
Simulator golf? Billy Horschel (Atlanta Drive GC) says that makes it sound like a gimmick, and he says TGL is more than that.
“We’re hitting off real grass, we’re hitting real shots. We’re playing on some artificial surface, but there’s a lot of technology that’s gone into this,” Horschel said. “We want to make it different than what people are seeing on the golf course. This is supposed to be different. It’s supposed to be new, it’s supposed to be fast, engaging, in a two-hour window when you’re going to be able to see every golf shot.
“You’re going to be able to see guys more engaging than they would be on a PGA Tour event.”
Players will wear microphones. They will be presented with yardage and wind conditions before each shot. Winning a hole is worth one point (no carryovers for a halve).
The six teams are Atlanta Drive, New York, Los Angeles, The Bay (San Francisco), Boston Common and Jupiter Links.
Team ownership has power brokers that include Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank (Atlanta Drive), Fenway Sports Group (Boston), Stephen Curry and former Milwaukee Bucks owner Marc Lasry (Bay) and New York Mets owner Steve Cohen (New York). Serena and Venus Williams are part owners of Los Angeles.
It’s night golf, sandwiched between college basketball on Monday and Tuesday nights. It’s team golf. And it’s indoor golf, the most unusual aspect of all.
“It’s a brand new concept, a brand new presentation of golf. There’s something exciting about seeing what that’s going to be like and being on the ground floor,” said Patrick Cantlay, part of the Atlanta Drive team.
“It gives a chance for a different perspective on people watching PGA Tour players,” he said. “I think it will be more personable, more action-packed. And I think the stadium they built is extremely impressive — impressive in person, and an impressive feat of engineering.”
