One of the most exciting events of 2025 will begin in January with Tiger Woods & Rory McIlroy‘s TGL. A first-of-its-kind, TGL will eliminate the limitations of on-course golf by providing the most technologically advanced indoor golf environment.
The entry list for the tournament is also quite impressive. Apart from the co-owners, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, we will also get to see Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Sahith Theegala, and many more of the best the sport has to offer.
Despite all the excitement, it’s still a bit difficult to imagine how golf can be imitated indoors on a digital screen. So let’s take a closer look at the setup and try to understand the format of the event.
TGL shared a post on their Instagram page trying to explain the complete format of the tournament. The first and most interesting, unique element of the tournament is ‘The Hammer’. As described in their post, every hole that is played will be for a single point. However, teams have the option to choose The Hammer on any hole to add one more point to the winning score. Once The Hammer is used by one team, it will be passed on to the other team and vice versa. Hence, this trump card may be used in all 15 holes by both teams. That’s 9 extra points for each team to grab.
The next image in the post is that of the Field Of Play. The field will be 97.3 yards long and 50 yards wide. At the far end of the field is the 64ft x 53ft screen that will be the target for all the golfers. There are two lengths to tee off on the screen: the Front Box and the Back Box. The Front Box is for shots under 130 yards while the long box will be for shots over 131 yards. On the near side, you can see the Greenzone. This is a short game shots zone where players will end the hole.
Speaking specifically of the screen, it will be 24 times bigger than any standard simulator screen available around the world. The Greenzone itself is also quite big. The whole area will be as big as 4 basketball courts combined.
Now that we understand the field better, let’s get a grasp of the format of the game.
Game Format
There will be a referee present on the course at all times. They will ensure that the TGL rules are administered efficiently without causing any distress. The TGL has also implemented a fast-play policy. Every player will have 40 seconds to hit their shot to avoid incurring a 1-stroke penalty for their team. However, teams are allowed to take timeouts if they need more time to plan their next approach. Each team will get four timeouts in total with two timeouts dedicated to each session.
Coming to the match format, the game will be played in 2 sessions. Session 1 will be played from holes 1 to 9. It will be a 3 vs 3 contest where the players will play alternating shots throughout the session. Session 2 will be played from holes 10-15. This will be a singles competition where all three players from each team will face their adversaries from the opposing team in a 1-vs-1 contest.
The matches will be played based on least stroke, but the tournament itself will be points-based. The winning team of every match will be awarded 2 points. However, the losing team can also win points. If the game goes into overtime, then even if a team loses, they would still be awarded a point on the leaderboard.
The winner of the tournament will be determined based on who wins the most points at the end of the season. The league format is pretty common in sports like football and soccer, and even in individual golf rankings. But having a whole season where teams compete in a league format is something new for pro golf. It’ll be cool to see how this plays out when the tournament kicks off.
Are you excited about all the action? You can catch all the action from the TGL from January 7, 2025, on ESPN and ESPN+.