TGL Week 5 Superlatives: Invalid readings, Keegan’s frustrations and a TGL frontrunner emerges

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Welcome to Tomorrow Golf League TODAY. Each week from now until the end of TGL’s inaugural season, we will meet here to recap all the physical, virtual and physical-virtual action from the world’s most-hyped professional simulator golf league. But this isn’t any old play-by-play. No, no. That requires too much writing. Instead, we will break down the week’s winners and losers via the most scientific form of analysis known to humanity: Superlatives.

Though Rory McIlroy’s bid to become the first ever back-to-back PGA Tour-TGL winner in golf history came up short on Tuesday, there was still plenty to digest from another heaping platter of primetime simulator golf. Let’s eat.

This Week’s Match:

Los Angeles Golf Club 6, Boston Common Golf 2

Best Performance: Justin Rose

Though Collin Morikawa, one of the best iron players on earth, delivered the highlight reel shots on Tuesday, Rosey asserted himself as the beating heart of the best team in TGL so far. The 2013 U.S. Open winner, 2018 FedEx Cup champ and four-time Ryder Cup victor has taken on unofficial captain status for LAGC, handling the crowd, sinking clutch putts and generally leading from the front. This simulator stuff might be a young man’s game, but Rose is out to prove it’s an old man’s sport.

Worst Performance: Adam Scott

It was a tough night for Adam Scott at the dish, who began by leaving his routine approach on the par-4 first well short. His tee shots on the 2nd and 5th found the penalty area and bunker, respectively, and he didn’t even scare the hole on a 5-foot birdie putt that would have gotten Boston Common back in the match on the 7th. Needless to say, Scott should sit for a match or two and give Hideki Matsuyama a chance to show his TGL mettle. Speaking of which …

Hideki Matswhoama?: Hideki Matsuyama

OK, we just wanted to make the pun, but BCG have started their maiden TGL campaign with back-to-back losses and we have still yet to see Hideki Matsuyama. Big Green need something, or perhaps someone, to give them a spark, and the record breaking 2025 Sentry winner might be just the guy to keep the WBZ-FM callers at bay for another week.

RELATED: Tiger Woods announces his mother Kultida has died

Biggest Break: Tommy Fleetwood’s “Invalid Reading”

When you’re hot, you’re hot. The breaks go your way, the refs give you the benefit of the doubt and you start every game with a lead on the mental scoreboard. Just ask Tommy Fleetwood, whose third shot on the par-5 2nd glitched, traveling only 39 yards on the screen despite Fleetwood seemingly making solid contact. After a brief delay, it was deemed an “Invalid Reading” and Fleetwood was allowed to replay his shot. The tinfoil hatters will debate whether “Invalid Reading” was in the rulebook before Fleetwood’s awkward error or simply made up on the spot, but it gave the Los Angeles Golf Club an early 2-0 lead and they never looked back.

Biggest Break Pt. 2: Collin Morikawa’s impossible tee shot

Much like the Kansas City Chiefs, LA got all the officiating breaks on Tuesday. After Fleetwood’s mulligan on the 2nd, Morikawa got bailed out on the 8th when his tee shot came to an impossible stop on a near vertical slope. One or two more revolutions, which the laws of actual gravity would have surely dictated, and Morikawa’s ball would have found the penalty area. Instead he got a free drop from a playable lie and LAGC went on to tie the hole. The Straight out of Compton Brentwood Boys have a long way to go before they reach the heights of Mahomes and co., but the cookie is already crumbling their way.

RELATED: Rory McIlroy reveals interesting victory meal after Pebble Beach win

Least Likely to Succeed: The bunker lip 2192898805

Megan Briggs/TGL

We’re nitpicking here, but does anybody else feel that the adjustable “bunker lip” is a complete non-factor? It’s been highlighted on nearly broadcast, including Tuesday when Matt Barrie said the 18-inch obstacle was “the highest” he had seen it all season, but it has yet to have any tangible impact. These guys are used to playing out of head-high gullies and sadistic pot bunkers, are we really supposed to believe a little turf flap is going to throw them off?

Class Clown: The jabroni who kept counting down “3, 2, 1 …”

… in the middle of the players’ backswings, even when there was plenty of time left on the shot clock. Rose gave the fan the ol’ I-can’t-hear-you gesture after sinking a hole-winning birdie putt on the 7th, and the joker was silenced soon after. Still though, this is the TGL equivalent of “baba booey,” and like a weed amongst flowers, it must be snuffed out with extreme prejudice (and lots of toxic chemicals) before it has any chance to grow.

Magnum PO’d: Keegan Bradley

One of the criticisms of TGL so far is that a few of the players—even legendary competitive psychopath Tiger Woods—seem a little too cool with losing. Not Keegan Bradley, though. With his mustache positively bristling, the 2025 U.S. Ryder Cup captain admitted how pissed he was with BCG’s performance heading into the singles portion of the evening. He then walked his talk, singlehandedly putting his team’s lone two points on the board. So far, it seems like the fiery match-play guys are the ones most suited to TGL, and we hope the league embraces that same spirit moving forward.

Best Strategy: Patience, young grasshopper

Want to know why LAGC have won 16 of their first 30 holes this season and have a +15 point differential? Because they’ve played boring golf. On Tuesday night, they laid up on par 5s, kept the Hammer in their pocket and made 32 feet of putts to BCG’s 5. The Storrow Drivers kept trying to lure them into a bomb-off, but LAGC refused to take the bait. A few weeks ago, Atlanta Drive G.C. employed a similar strategy with successful results. It may not be a sexy formula, but so far it’s a winning one.

RELATED: ‘The Crushers would be a part of that!’: Bryson DeChambeau has his say on joining TGL

This article was originally published on golfdigest.com