A shrink would probably have a field day with this, but against my better judgement I stayed up and watched the TGL again last night. There must be some horrific act in my past that I’ve chosen to repress, because what other explanation can be put forward for the effective self-flagellation I willingly succumbed to?
What makes matters worse, is that when the coverage finished at 2am – that it didn’t actually run over time this week is the most positive thing I can muster – I tossed and turned for at least another 90 minutes afterwards in self-loathing as I furiously berated myself for the decision.
Week one had to be watched. We’re in the golf media business, and putting my golf fandom aside, I had a professional responsibility to see for myself exactly what all the fuss was about. Week two had Tiger Woods, so refer to week one above.
But by week three, I have no real excuse. So let’s call a spade a spade. The TGL is a terrible entertainment product, which was overhyped, oversold and which has massively underdelivered.
Okay, it hasn’t helped that the first two matches were complete blowouts and that the third – the closest to date by far – was still a shutout that was over long before the final match got underway. So in the absence of actual golfing drama, we’re relying on the players themselves to shoulder the entertainment factor and that’s a scary place to be when 90 percent of them are devoid of any sort of charisma or personality.
It’s hard to imagine that a mic’d up Patrick Cantlay in an indoor simulation environment could be less exciting than Patrick Cantlay in his regular week-to-week setting, but that’s exactly what we got. It’s even harder to imagine that there’d be somebody less entertaining or engaging, but that’s exactly what we got in Cameron Young, who, as best as I can recall, didn’t utter a single word in 120 minutes.
Cantlay’s ability to smother excitement has served him well in his professional golfing career, but he put the kibosh on ‘The Hammer, delivered to you by FedEx’, effectively putting it under lock and key after it had spent the first dozen holes nestled snugly in Justin Thomas’ back pocket. There’s a certain irony in a man sponsored by DeWalt installing a tool ban, as there is in the FedEx delivery not being received, but when we’re plumbing to those depths in search of positives, it speaks volumes.
Billy Horschel did his best to entertain, even breaking out the Atlanta Falcon’s iconic ‘Dirty Bird’ touchdown celebration dance on entrance, and he and Justin Thomas did 90pc of the talking, but there has to be some sort of a response and if Matt Fitzpatrick, Rickie Fowler and Young were capable of delivering it, they certainly weren’t willing.
Part of the problem with the TGL is that they’ve clearly pumped so much money in (and taken so much money in from assorted ‘partners’) that they’ve handcuffed themselves when it comes to innovation – which is again ironic given that “innovative” is one of the most commonly used words in media coverage of the event.
I don’t know how much Marty Smith – the sideline reporter – is being paid for his ‘work’, but each and every time they cut to him with the mic, I desperately want to punch him in the face, so I’d argue that if it’s a penny then it’s a penny too much. I’m not sure what was worse, him trying to ask Luke Donald about how competing in the TGL environment would help prepare his Ryder Cup team for the pressure of the first tee at Bethpage Black, or him asking the coach of the Auburn University Golf Team, who are reigning NCAA national champions, how TGL could help his students to become better players.
We rightly laughed at LIV commentators for trying to oversell the product when anybody with an eye and half a brain could see otherwise at the start, now the TGL commentators are gushing about players hitting long drives on a hole downhill to the extent that it’s just short of being a ‘black’ ski slope.
“The longest drive in TGL history!” “The first shutout in TGL history!” “The lowest winning margin in TGL history!” There have been three events and 45 holes in total! Yes, those facts may be accurate, but it’s nothing to shout from the rooftops about when there’s such a small sample size to compare to.
We’re constantly being told that the TGL is designed for the younger viewer – the TikTok generation if you will – so celebrating the attendance of Ja Rule, a ’90s rapper who has been musically irrelevant since the early 2000s and who the TikTok generation will know best for his involvement in the Fyre Festival debacle – if you don’t know what this is, I suggest watching Fyre Fraud on whichever streaming platform you can find it – also seemed a strange move.
There has been too much invested in getting the league off the ground to sound the death knells just yet, but if TGL was a stock floating on Wall Street and shares were a dollar three weeks ago, they’d be floating at about 33c at present and that might be being generous.
Next week features Rory v Tiger. The two men who arguably have most to gain by the league’s success are now the two men tasked with rescuing a sinking ship.
As luck would have it, I’ll be out of the country and the TGL will be far from my mind when the fixture takes place a day earlier with the NFL’s Monday Night Football now finished for the season, so I’ll perhaps be saving myself further embarrassment and another sleepless night by giving it a wide berth, but it’ll effectively be ‘Last Chance Saloon’ for most viewers.
Let’s leave it on a positive note, however. He either wasn’t in attendance or was completely ignored by the TV cameras, but finally we got a DJ Khaled free night. So, credit where credit is due.
Unfortunately, that’s about all the credit I’m capable of doling out.
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