by The concept of golf is preposterous. The entire idea of the game, and the billion-dollar industrial complex that now surrounds it, is ridiculous. There is a famous Robin Williams bit about this. The ordering of it at the pro level into disparate ruling bodies and clubs, as a recent Seth Waugh monologue reminded, is just as absurd. All of this probably did not make much sense at the start, and it might make even less sense now.
There are, of course, millions more golf experiments that started with the same level of foolish optimism and are now ashes rather than industries. But I tried to extend the grace and historical context of preposterous-ideas-gone-big on Monday night as I stood on a fresh slab of South Florida concrete among Noah Kahan, Niall Horan, Big Papi David Ortiz, Adam Scott (the golfer not the actor because that needs clarifying here), and a gaggle of very wealthy folks associated with the Fenway Sports Group and a nascent golf league. Still, it was hard not to look at the odd cocktail of “notable” people at a fairly random patch of concrete outside of a Palm Beach community college and wonder what the fuck was going on.
What was going on was the TGL, the new indoor golf experiment. As the mishmash collection of folks surrounding it might indicate, it is well-funded. As who and what was in the building on that random patch of community college concrete might indicate, it has spent a lot of funds. Even after all of the promotion and hype and big names involved, the cost of this experiment is immense after seeing it up close, But it is ambitious. It is also now real and alive. Monday’s match between the Boston Common Ballfrogs and the Jupiter Links, helmed by the two marquee founders, Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods, will be hailed as a breakthrough and an early high-water mark. There have been only four matches. In person, it was fun. The hammer was live. The shot clock buzzed Tiger freaking Woods. It was fun for the irony, the absurdity, and also, what seemed to be some real competition and entertainment.
It felt much easier to follow the flow of the game and to be engaged in the actual arena than watching the first three on television. The cadence of the match and shots faced were much easier to track. This may be a problem as the arena, while quite cool and full of shiny tech, holds less than 2,000 people and is not the primary way this league will be consumed. It’s a television product first, as they will be quick to tell you it’s broadcast to however many countries across the globe. In person? A planned January trip to the area was cause to attend one of these and we had a ball. This is my honest review and the same thing I sent in private to a fellow golf enthusiast dad who was curious-to-confused about it on Tuesday.
Our enjoyment does not necessarily allay proper skepticism. There was an undercurrent of that throughout the night. Those in attendance, even the ones invested in it, I think are curious about what it is and how long it might be around. There is a thought that it might not last beyond a year or two. But as I wondered at the start of the first match, it may be almost too big to fail. The lineup of owners and investors, from Steve Cohen to Arthur Blank to the Fenway Group and so on, is hefty. Is this the kind of group willing to preside over something so hyped and publicized flopping disastrously after a year? Pro sports owners might be averse to the shame of a public failure but not immune to it. They have jumped headlong into experiments that became disastrous failures. The owner of the most valuable sports franchise in the entire world just hired Brian Schottenheimer to be its coach. But while they may go down paths that result in image hits and embarrassing public flops, they never really lose at the bank.
So there are guardrails, from the golf pros associated to the financial backers to the rights partner. The sheer volume of big brands, big money, big TV, and big pros involved in this experiment would suggest it will not crater out of existence within a couple years. Whether it gains any real traction is a separate matter.
A primary focus right now seems to be the business of this experiment. There are often two starting points of an idea: Can we make something good and/or can we make money? In the ideal scenario, both line up but one typically has to take a lead at the start. There is not much real estate that has gone unsold in the arena or on the broadcast. The business – from revenue to funding to partners – is functioning as it starts up. The game is a wild idea, but needs work and will be nipped and tucked continuously one would imagine. One persistent dichotomy to continue focusing on is whether this is a business for a bunch of rich guys to move some money around or a real product. Golf may have been a preposterous idea at the start, but the contemplation of profits, sales, and tax write-offs were probably not in the mind of the Scots centuries ago like they might be with this TGL launch. Can you make something good and make it a business?
This fourth match put the possibility of the product on better display. It was competitive. The players were engaged. One person who has been up close inside the game for a long time said it was among the happier times they had seen Tiger, who seemed to be having genuine fun with it all, especially with his son watching. Not all of it is genuine. The banter obviously can be terrible and awkward for some of these pros but the competitiveness in the later moments felt legitimate. There remain issues with adjusting, and even trusting, the technology readings and the game conditions. I would say this is barely golf. It’s golf-ish. My thought is that as they play more, and better dial in to these golf-ish conditions, players will become more competitive and committed.
But I’m willing to entertain a completely opposite outcome of ennui. If you think the TGL is stupid and dismiss it out of hand, I would hear that side of it. It did feel like a hallucination at times. There are overcooked elements. The merchandise and team branding are still hard to take seriously, but maybe not for the youths. The green seems way too small and/or sloped for how small it is – that was evident getting up close. It’s an issue. The tech readings could be iffy. The lights, shouting, and extras are definitely not for everyone. The music is often funny, in an unintended way. The arena was impressive inside the playing field while the concourse felt like a pop-up Spirit Halloween store that could be taken down and disappeared in a week.
The crowd is fairly flat, especially in the painful minutes between air time and the first actual shot. It’s precisely the crowd energy you’d expect from a bunch of fancy folks from Palm Beach or with investments in a team. Be skeptical of the broadcast if they tell you the crowd is going wild. It’s a bunch of nice, well-to-do people, many of whom may be unclear on their purpose for being there. It’s expected that this is primarily a VIP gathering at the moment but if they want to juice up the arena, they could bring in more rowdy people with a lot less to lose. The arena crowd is not the one they need to win, but more energy from it might come through on the broadcast and grab the one they do need to win.
The experiment does seem to be doing decent in that metric: the TV audience. The sample size is small, but it is hitting a younger demo and attracting two and three times the viewers for these early-season PGA Tour events. I do wonder how that marriage will proceed with players on Tour who are not on TGL, title sponsors like AmEx or Sony on Tour, and the Tour itself. It does not seem complimentary to the Tour and may be putting some of its weaknesses up on stage.
There may come a time for that conversation. One month in, it’s an expensive, attention-grabbing experiment. In Match 4, it was a display of some of golf’s most famous ever players partaking in it. And, to get really profound, it was fun.
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