TGL’s upcoming innovative golf tournament has raised many question marks, but co-founder Mike McCarley has defended its approach The tournament’s new approach to the sport.
TGL boss Mike McCarley has insisted the innovative tournament created with PGA Tour stars Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy is a lot like real golf.
The Stadium Golf Tournament officially launched in January, and over the past two weeks, the tournament has released a series of updates, including which teams players will play for, as well as configuration rules and regulations.
The TGL is certainly a first for professional golf, with every shot played at a custom-built stadium in Palm Beach.
Twenty-four players will be divided into six different teams, which will compete throughout the 15-week season, with a playoff series and a final champion crowned after the conclusion of the regular campaign.
Each match will be played at the 1,600-seat SoFi Center, with long-range shots in state-of-the-art simulators and short rounds on the indoor driving and putting greens. The stadium includes a grass teeing area, fairway and rough, as well as bunkers.
Amid the technological approach adopted by TGL bosses, McCarley was quick to reassure golf fans that the tournament is not far from an e-sport.
Comparing it to playing golf on the course, he told WIRED: “Golfers are making identical physical movements with the same club, same ball, in the same physical environment.”
” One of TGL’s 24 contestants, Cam Young, echoed McCarley and pledged his support for the tech event.“ Hitting a ball into the screen right in front of you is a very simple experience,” Young said.
“But with this, you can actually hit shots, especially when you see the flight of the ball a little bit.” Many question marks have been raised over the TGL since its format was rolled out last week, with many in the sport comparing the innovative tournament to rival LIV Golf.
LIV prides itself on breaking the mold of traditional professional golf, a similar sentiment is shared by TGL, whose site motto is: “The New Experience to Golf”.
The stadium-based setup also chose to introduce a team element to its competition, a system that is arguably the LIV circuit’s greatest achievement.
Despite the comparisons, co-founder McIlroy has been quick to distance TGL from its Saudi-backed rivals.
Speaking at the press conference launching his Boston Common team, the Northern Irishman said: “I think [TGL] is considered complementary [to professional golf], which is not to say it’s not “
Whenever Mike [McCarley] pitched this idea to Tiger and I, one of the first things we said was ‘if we’re going to do this, we’re going to have to get along cooperately in one way or another with the PGA Tour and make that complementary’.
“That’s the first thing. It’s not a contradiction at all, it’s ‘how can we be added to the whole system’.” Rushing into the LIV setup, he continued: “We pretend to be competitive and it’s a different kind of golf, but it’s not the same kind of golf you see every week.
“I don’t want to sit here and talk about LIV, but one could argue that they haven’t innovated enough against traditional golf or they’ve innovated too much away from traditional golf, stranded in no man’s land, when it’s so far removed from what we know about golf.