This is just another thing wrong with TGL

Golfshake's Derek Clements shares his latest View From The Fairway...

You may or may not be aware that TGL, the indoor virtual league fronted by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, has kicked off again. I tuned in to a couple of episodes last year. 

My colleague, Fin Tait, sang its praises last week. I couldn’t disagree more. I think it’s sheer drivel, a made-for-TV exercise that is doomed to fail. It left me cold. For me, it was like watching paint dry and I fully expected it to die a natural death. But no, it’s back and is now midway through its second season. 

In fairness, Fin is a LOT younger than I am, and therein could lie the crucial difference, although I do not know anybody who is a fan.

The best women golfers in the world are also now being given an opportunity to compete in a season of team matchplay in the SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens, but Nelly Korda sees it as a missed opportunity - and she is absolutely correct. Women’s golf struggles to raise its profile. There was a golden opportunity to help put this right by staging a mixed league. No such luck.

Korda describes the lack of a mixed gender indoor virtual league as "an unbelievable miss" following the launch of a women's competition backed by Woods and McIlroy. It is like they are paying lip service to women’s golf.

Korda believes that failing to combine men and women's events is a missed opportunity. She said: "I have mixed feelings on it, and I'm surprised no other girls have spoken out about it. It's a huge and unbelievable miss that we're not playing alongside the men.

"There's no greater way to grow the game, and it would have been revolutionary. It would have been the first time that men and women are on the same playing field, playing for the same amount of money. But I also think it's great that we are getting this opportunity, so that's my mixed feelings."

The indoor golf set-up features teams of players hitting shots at a five-storey-high simulator screen before moving to a short-game area with bunkers and a green that can rotate 360 degrees, creating hole-to-hole variations. There are shot clocks, music, and players wear microphones but it all feels incredibly staged and will have traditionalists such as myself reaching for the remote to find something else to watch. Anything else, to be frank.

Mike McCarley, a former TV executive who founded TGL with McIlroy and Woods admits that the idea of mixed gender play had been considered. He said: "I think that is something that's interesting to us and is interesting to the LPGA and is interesting to a lot of the players we're talking to. Right now, we're really focused on building TGL and providing a nice stage and a really nice platform to showcase the players and their personalities."

Interestingly, Korda has yet to commit to the women-only event, saying she is "still weighing out the time commitment", although Jeeno Thitikul, Charley Hull and Lottie Woad have confirmed that they will be playing. The start date and prize pot for the women's competition is yet to be announced, beyond it being scheduled to take place in winter 2026-27, but I really cannot help feeling that McCarley, McIlroy and Woods have missed a chance - they still have time to put that right.