After its inaugural season was postponed for a full year, TGL, the tech-infused team golf league created by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy and their TMRW Sports business venture, released its 2025 schedule, which begins on January 8 and culminates in a best-of-three playoff series on March 25-26.
Consisting of six teams with four players each, TGL will debut on ESPN at 9pm on January 7 in the US (1pm on January 8, AEDT) with the New York Golf Club, led by reigning PGA and Open champion Xander Schauffele, facing the Bay Golf Club featuring major champions Shane Lowry and Wyndham Clark and 2024 Masters runner-up Ludvig Aberg. Week 2 in the eight-week regular season features Tiger Woods’ Jupiter Links Golf Club meeting Los Angeles Golf Club, led by Collin Morikawa, at 7pm on January 14 (11am on January 15, AEDT).
If all goes well, Woods will make his debut in the new endeavour that week. Woods underwent surgery on his back in September and has not said how long the recovery process might be or when he expects to play again.
The overall TGL schedule is highlighted by a tripleheader on ESPN and ESPN2 on Monday, February 17 (February 18 in Australia). The first of those matches begins at 5am, AEDT.
Each two-hour match will be broadcast on ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPN+ and played at the 1,500-seat SoFi Center, a specially designed a 23,000-square-metre stadium located on the campus of Palm Beach State College in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. The venue originally featured an air-supported dome, but a power outage last November caused extensive damage to the structure, forcing TGL to reschedule its launch for 2025.
“TGL presented by SoFi will combine teams of world-class PGA Tour stars with the energy fans have become familiar with in other team sports – a live, courtside experience for golf on an unprecedented scale,” said Mike McCarley, chief executive and founder of TMRW Sports, in a press release. McCarley went on to say the TGL schedule “will complement the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup season with a fast-paced team competition that aims to captivate a wide range of sports fans with elements, like a shot clock, that are familiar to fans of other sports. TGL’s two-hour matches are perfect for prime time and will help bring more fans closer to some of the biggest names in golf.”
In partnership with the PGA Tour, TGL is essentially a team matchplay event contested on a blend of virtual golf holes and a short-game complex for bunker shots, chips and putting that features changing topography. Three players from each team compete in the 15-hole match. The top four teams advance to the playoff semi-finals on March 17-18, the week after the Players Championship, and the best-of-three finals are scheduled for March 24-25 with the winner receiving the SoFi Cup.
Sixteen matches will be televised in prime time in the US, which will equate to mornings in Australia.