TGL serves up drama galore on Presidents Day

With the United States celebrating Presidents Day, three TGL matches at the SoFi Centre proved to be dramatic affairs as the opening match went to an overtime chip-off and the final two were decided on the closing hole.

In the night’s anchor match, Shane Lowry, Ludvig Åberg and Wyndham Clark of the Bay Golf Club edged out Rory McIlroy, Hideki Matsuyama and Keegan Bradley’s Boston Common in a thrilling finale, capped by a walk-off, hole and match winning eagle from Clark on the 15th hole.

Having decided that the original ‘Hammer’ rules weren’t working, league organisers switched it up and now each team starts the match with three ‘Hammers’ and it’s added immensely to the excitement.

Boston Common got off to the perfect start with McIlroy wedging to 12 feet and Matsuyama sinking the putt after Boston had thrown a hammer that was accepted, giving them an early two-point lead.

But the Bay halved the deficit on the third when Matsuyama went long on the par-3 and Clark stuffed one close, then threw a hammer that Boston declined, thereby conceding the hole. Another hammer throw from Clark on the fifth, this time with Bradley facing a six-and-a-half footer for a half saw Bay hit the front as the putt lipped out, and the remaining four holes in triples play were halved, leaving Bay up 3-2 heading into singles.

A chip-in eagle from Bradley brought the match back to all-square at three apiece on the 10th, but Aberg then holed a 15-footer for birdie to beat McIlroy on 11 to reclaim the lead.

On the third-to-last hole, Bradley drove the green on the par-4, but Lowry, short-sided, underhit his pitch and it caught the top of the bunker. Boston opted to throw their second hammer of the night and again it was declined, leaving the match tied once again going to the 14th.

McIlroy and Aberg both found the green on the par-3, and when McIlroy holed from 10 feet, another hammer throw left Aberg with six feet to keep the match alive. As he had been on Sunday at Torrey Pines, the Swede was nerveless and followed Rory in, meaning it was all to play for on the last.

Matsuyama and Clark both found the green in two on the par-5, but when Matsuyama’s putt slid by, Clark was left with just under 10 feet for the win, and the putt was never going anywhere other than dead-centre.

Having earlier defeated Atlanta Drive on another final-hole decider, Bay Golf Club remain undefeated and move to the top of the league with three wins from three, but Boston Common have yet to get any points on the board and now need to win their final two matches to have any chance of making it into the final four playoff.

“Yeah, it’s great, especially when you’ve got these two as your partners,” Lowry said. “It makes it a bit easier. Great time tonight. I think — you know, I was sort of thinking, look, we’re all competitors, so we want to win and we want to get to the Playoffs and do all that. And I was thinking if we could win both on matches today, that we’re in, obviously, sitting pretty good. And just coming here and watching the boys earlier on, get the win, and then go out and do it this evening, was pretty good. And I think all in all, the whole day for TGL was really good. I think the new rules are pretty good, all the tight matches, and I think we’ve seen today what this could really be.”

Despite a third successive defeat, McIlroy thinks that the new hammer rules have made for much more exciting contests.

“This is the first day that we’ve had these new hammer rules, and every match was really tight,” he explained. “I think it enables a team, if they do go down in the match, to come back. We were 4-3 down going into the last three holes, but we still had two hammers, so it felt like we were almost — it feltlike we were tied, you know, just knowing we had those extra two hammers. So I think it’s a really good change. You still have to be strategic with them because you don’t want to — The Bay threw their hammers early in the match and didn’t have any for the last few holes, and we kept ours a little bit, and that enabled us to keep ourselves in the match. If it wasn’t for Ludvig holing that putt on the par-3, we actually would have went up in the match without going into that last hole. So I think these new hammer rules are really good.”

Earlier in the day, despite Tommy Fleetwood holing out in a nearest the pin chip off, Atlanta Drive prevailed in a best two out of three chip-off, handing LA GC their first loss and moving Atlanta Drive to two wins from two, but that didn’t last long as Bay GC took down Atlanta Drive on the final hole.

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