The Bay Golf Club defeated New York Golf Club in dominating fashion in TGL's debut on Tuesday.
The Bay (Ludvig Aberg, Shane Lowry, and Wyndham Clark) topped New York (Xander Schauffele, Matt Fitzpatrick, and Rickie Fowler) 7-1 through 10 holes to win the indoor match.
The teams continued to play all 15 holes (as the first postseason tiebreaker in TGL is ‘Total Holes Won’) and The Bay won nine holes to New York winning just two.
“We don’t have a coach to blame … After a bad game, you could blame your coach,” Schauffele said. “But we have no one to blame other than ourselves.
“That was as bad as it could have possibly gone for the New York Golf Club today. Bummer to let my boys down here, and it was a rough go.”
Aberg rolled in a birdie on the first hole of the match and The Bay was off to the races after that, with Clark draining a seven-footer for birdie on the par-3 3rd (after The Bay threw the hammer) to earn two points.
The Bay won the Triples segment of the match 6-1 (Triples means each member of a team plays a role in each hole, with Player A hitting a drive, Player B hitting an approach, and Player C hitting a putt or chip, etc.) before moving on to Singles, where The Bay won three of the five available points.
TGL, co-founded by Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods, seemed to receive mostly positive reaction from followers online with many praising the pace, the banter, and the technologically advanced stadium environment.
Both McIlroy and Woods were in the building Tuesday night to celebrate the launch of the stadium golf league that has brought together two dozen of the PGA Tour’s best.
Woods’ team, Jupiter Links GC, will play next week.
“This was just a dream conjured up,” Woods said on the broadcast. “Rory and I were talking about it; it's hard to believe that dream came into reality and we were able to take golf into another stratosphere, really.”
The true team portion of the match proved to be the more exciting format, while viewers did hear less from the mic’d up players than what was initially expected —admittedly, members of The Bay Golf Club said, because they were down by a touchdown.
One thing worth keeping an eye on moving forward is the shot clock, and how it impacts play. Players only have 40 seconds to hit shots, which keeps the entire match moving to an under-two-hours output.
“I couldn’t believe how quickly everything happened. How quickly you had to go and hit your shot and do everything,” Lowry said.
Still, it was a very solid first crack at something completely different — with a dominating first-match scoresheet.
“I thought it was going to be a little bit more of a match,” Clark said with a laugh. “As we learned how to play… it is a game. It’s not necessarily pure golf – there’s a bit of a game and trick to it. I feel like we got really comfortable. I will say, we had a lot of fun. We were laughing. It’s a lot of fun being up here with these guys.”
Key moment
After Clark hit a pedestrian tee shot on the par-3 5th, Aberg rolled in a twisting 32-foot birdie to send The Bay Golf Club out to an impressive 5-0 advantage.
An honourable mention to Lowry, who hit the first-ever tee shot in TGL history — and was so nervous he initially forgot a tee, and he took his earpiece out to hit the shot (although he did find the fairway).
Top performer
Many on the PGA Tour claim Aberg to be robotic in his approach to golf, so it was no surprise to see him as the night’s best. Aberg rolled in the first birdie in TGL history and was his usual, epic ball-striking self.
The rout was on early for The Bay Golf Club, and Aberg was the biggest reason why.
The shot of the night came from New York’s Fitzpatrick, who knocked a cheeky pitch from 29 feet behind the green to just a couple feet after creatively using a backstop and rolling it back.
Quotable
“A bit like myself. A bit chunky,” Lowry said after one of his shots came up short.
Up next
Los Angeles Golf Club (Collin Morikawa, Justin Rose, Tommy Fleetwood, Sahith Theegala) vs. Jupiter Links GC (Tiger Woods, Tom Kim, Max Homa, Kevin Kisner) on Jan. 14 at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+
For New York GC: Jan. 21 vs. Atlanta Drive GC
For The Bay Golf Club: Feb. 17 vs. Atlanta Drive GC (4 p.m. ET) and Boston Common Golf (7 p.m.) as part of a TGL tripleheader.
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