Rory McIlroy believes the new Tomorrow’s Golf League (TGL) will help bring golf into the 21st century.
Described as ‘golf reimagined’ by the 35-year-old who founded the indoor simulator league alongside Tiger Woods, the TGL gets underway on Tuesday evening when New York Golf Club take on The Bay Golf Club over 15 holes in front of 1,500 spectators in Florida on Tuesday evening.
Neither McIlroy or Woods will be competing on the opening night but Offaly’s Shane Lowry will be teeing it up for The Bay Golf Club alsongide Wyndham Clark and Ludvig Åberg as they tackle Rickie Fowler, Matt Fitzpatrick and Xander Schauffele.
“The first thing I would like to have people know is it’s golf, but it’s reimagined, sort of trying to take golf into the 21st century,” McIlroy said ahead of the launch of TGL which has come one year later than planned following a roof collapse at the Palm Beach County venue last year.
“We have teams, obviously there’s a lot of technology involved, trying to bring it into the digital era. A lot of things that we’ve taken from other sports like a shot-clock, a timeout, things that you don’t see in regular golf.”
The format will see players hit from tee boxes with real grass, fairway, rough and sand into a 64x53ft screen.
For shots of inside 50 yards the ball will be placed on a designated short game area which will include an adjustable green.
“The playing surfaces are very realistic,” McIlroy added.
“Whenever you hit it out of the rough, you have to think about whether you’re going to get a flyer; whether it’s going to come out soft. A lot of things that you would have to think about on a real golf course.”
The TGL became a forgotten concept when its initial launch was cancelled last year but Woods believes the delay has allowed for more time to produce a better product and McIlroy is excited by the potential impact the simulator competition could have.
“Tiger and I have been a part of this from day one and whenever you see the concepts and the renderings you think ‘Yeah, that looks really cool,’” McIlroy told ESPN.
“But until you actually stand in here [the SoFi Center] and you see what they’ve been able to do, I think the scale of it is the thing for me that blows my mind.
“Every time I step in here I’m just blown away by the size of the screen, the fact that we’re able to put something that looks like golf on a stage like this. It’s really cool and we’re obviously really excited about it within in the game of golf.
“I think a lot of other people outside of the game are going to see this and hopefully get excited about it as well.”
The TGL will be broadcast live on Sky Sports for viewers in the UK and Ireland.
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