Is TGL a success? What’s working and what’s next for golf’s indoor simulator league

As difficult as it to imagine, we’re now nearly two months into some of the world’s best golfers trying to avoid lava on Monday and Tuesday nights.

TGL, the indoor simulator league with the rotating green, has captured the interest of golfers and casual sports fans, helped by attractive time slots on ESPN and a list of competitors that includes co-founders Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy. Has everything been perfect? No way — did you see when Tiger hit it 99 yards last week, only to find out the hole was 199 yards away? That doesn’t happen at TPC Sawgrass. But even the most pessimistic amongst us has to acknowledge that there’s something here.

With one week left in the regular season we feel like we’ve given TGL enough time to come out of beta and make a strong judgment on what’s working and what’s not, and who we’d like to see added for a (presumed) Year 2 in 2026.

What’s working for you?

Gabby Herzig: I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the anecdotal evidence that the product is getting new eyeballs on golf — the texts from friends and family members who wonder how this new league works and what it’s all about are still frequent. The ESPN ratings have varied week to week, but they’ve been solid overall. That tells me my intuition on one major positive coming out of TGL is correct: The Monday/Tuesday night prime time spot is a great time slot for this type of product. Seeing Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and other players mic’d up, hitting golf shots in between big tournament appearances is a value-add to the professional landscape. It provides an interesting new lead-up to the bulk of the traditional golf season. The more exposure fans have to these athletes on different stages and in new formats, the more potential there is for additional traction and engagement with the PGA Tour product. As the weeks have passed, I feel the players have gotten more enthusiastic about loosening up, chatting amongst each other and celebrating like other pro athletes do. I’ve enjoyed the addition of more “mic’d up moments,” where the broadcast compiles sound bytes from players that might have been missed during play. The new rules for the hammer have also been a total game-changer. The matches are now much more likely to reverse course if one team is pulling ahead — that certainly can’t hurt.

Brody Miller: The players don’t care at all in a truly deep way. But they care so damn much in that same way you want to beat your friend more than anything in the world. That works for me. That’s the product in my eyes.

At the absolute simplest level: We see major stars we don’t often get to see outside of intense environments getting to mess around and compete with each other. The television events like “The Match” just don’t work, for a myriad of reasons, but this gives casual viewers something to turn on on a Monday/Tuesday night and turn their brain off to enjoy. Emphasis on turning their brain off. The second viewers take this seriously, it loses steam.

But on nights where matches get close — more on that later — TGL thrives. And it’s because of that simple reason. It’s absurdly fun seeing six superstar golfers get competitive the same way you do with your buddies over a game of cornhole. Collin Morikawa, often a dry figure in tournament settings, was living and dying with each shot in Monday’s comeback and getting hyped. Guys like Justin Thomas, Wyndham Clark, Xander Schauffele or Billy Horschel being natural heels and trolls is good, casual entertainment.

Players act composed or respectful when they hit a huge birdie putt on 17 at a tournament. They lost their minds when Sahith Theegala’s putt went in Monday. And the addition of the hammer rule changes immediately sparked more of this by keeping matches competitive and increasing the amount of times we get to see players sassily throw a flag.

Hugh Kellenberger: It’s a hang. It’s a sporting event but it’s not a game. We don’t want them to chuckle and not care at all about the result, but TGL cannot also make us or them care about The Bay vs. Jupiter Links. It’s why all the memes about New York needing to rebuild hit — it’s attaching a level of serious sports discourse to an event that just does not demand it.

And that’s OK! There are so many sports on right now, every night of the week — the result of sports being the only thing that reliably gets people to watch live TV in 2025. Not all of it can be super serious, life or death stuff. But Billy Horschel doing Billy Horschel things for two hours on a Monday night? I can get behind that.

What’s not working?

Herzig: We need a wellness check on FullSwing’s simulator technology. TGL has some serious issues if they can’t figure out how to give the players full confidence that their shots are ending up in the right places when they hit into the 60-foot-tall custom-built screen. TGL and league members have been vocal about the technology — co-founder Rory McIlroy came out and admitted he cross-tested FullSwing against Trackman and Foresight Sports, two popular launch monitors, and he came away satisfied. But that doesn’t change the fact that players seem to be consistently perplexed by their own ball flight. We’re talking about the world’s best here — they know what it feels like to hit the ball 120 yards vs. 140 yards. Even Hideki Matsuyama, who is known to barely crack a smile let alone a furrowed brow, looked hesitant about the result of several shots on Monday evening. If I were TGL, I’d be looking into switching launch monitor partners for next season. There is a reason why tour players carry around portable launch monitors from Trackman and GCQuad Foresight. Those products are the best in the business.

Miller: Gabby laid out the technology issues right away, and that is certainly the No. 1 issue. This is pushed as a major gambling product, and it’s not even accurate!  Not good! Although watching players try to hide their annoyance is one of the five best things about the league.

But to go deeper, the golf is just not very captivating. It’s a simulator league, so that was always an uphill battle. I don’t mean this should feel architecturally compelling. My bar is very low here. There’s just something so empty about even the best shots. A lengthy shot with a 3 wood into a green takes one bounce and sticks near the pin. And the bad shots usually feel like it might be the technology. The only times I truly feel locked in are when we move around the green and I feel the stakes (and the other players reacting). In TGL’s defense, that’s why the rapid speed is such a positive for me. No lingering on the golf. It’s just fun, harmless instant gratification.

Kellenberger: I actually don’t mind when the simulator has clearly failed, because it introduces a level of randomness that would not be there otherwise with the best players in the world hitting in a wind-less virtual world. But that’s also problematic for betting, so I get the argument for change.

I’m going to focus on the broadcast, because a lot of the competitive elements actually work about as well as they could possibly have for Year 1. ESPN seems to not know what it wants TGL to be, sometimes behaving as the type of broadcast that cannot believe it has real live pro athletes in the building and other times deeply invested in a playoff race. Both approaches fall flat. There has to be a way to accentuate the best parts about TGL while also not getting in its way. That would probably exclude Marty Smith — he’s on my TV enough that someone out there clearly likes him, but I’ve never understood the appeal. The broadcast stops and loses all energy every time they throw it to him.

Who do you want to see in Year 2?

Herzig: Maybe I’m asking for too much, but I’d like to see TGL go full throttle into the youth movement, get LPGA players involved, and maybe even allow a LIV team to enter the league. I’d love to see Luke Clanton (who was in attendance on Monday evening), Akshay Bhatia and Nick Dunlap get spots on TGL rosters. And why not add an LPGA player to each squad? Imagine Charley Hull as the latest addition to Boston Common or Nelly Korda strategizing on a chip shot with Tiger Woods. The most obvious character, who would be a perfect fit for the TGL model, however, is Bryson DeChambeau — the king of YouTube golf. Bryson, I imagine, would bring an entirely new element to the league in the form of fan interaction. He knows how to talk to a camera and make the viewer feel like they are part of the action. We’re still missing that in the current TGL format, because none of these guys are active YouTubers. It’s just not in their nature.

Miller: I’m very pro-adding LPGA players and young names, to Gabby’s suggestion. This is not real golf. We don’t need to get bogged down by distance conversations. The fun here is in the fish-out-of-water element of seeing these people react in ways we don’t normally. Getting Korda and Zhang in there to add more wrinkles would be great.

Then, certainly we all want to see the Texas stars that aren’t here already. Scottie Scheffler is one of the ultimate trash talkers in money games and pickleball or anything else. The current two best players in the world — Scheffler and Xander Schauffele — are actually the two best fits for TGL, so it’s a shame we haven’t actually seen either outside of the latter’s Night 1 appearance. And can you imagine Jordan Spieth’s neuroticism with these simulators? Can’t miss TV. We just need to figure out how to get his caddy, Michael Greller, involved.

Kellenberger: Arthur Blank, Atlanta Drive’s owner, said Monday night they’re open to adding more teams and bringing in the top women. So that’s probably happening. Other names I had on my list that have not already been mentioned: Megan Khang, Cameron Smith, Robert MacIntyre and Will Zalatoris.

Who do we have to get out of SoFi Center?

Herzig: No offense to these guys, but Patrick Cantlay, Lucas Glover, Hideki Matsuyama, Cameron Young and Matt Fitzpatrick might need to go. Their personalities are just not a fit, for obvious reasons.

Miller: Gabby no! Matsuyama being the slightly weird, uncomfortable outsider has led to some great entertainment. And maybe I’m a nerd, but Cantlay being hyper-fixated on hammer strategy is so funny to me.

After that, yes. Get the people out who don’t seem like they’re leaning into being here. Young does not want to be there, clearly. Fitzpatrick tries, to be fair, but his type of humor just doesn’t come through. Adam Scott is the man, but he doesn’t seem very interested. And that’s completely OK! It’s nonsense. But I think we’ve seen that the people who want to be here add the most entertainment. Nobody is tuning in for Billy Horschel, but he makes the product better.

Kellenberger: “Might need to go.” Gabby is so kind to these guys. Cantlay and Matsuyama are probably too high in the world rankings to dismiss entirely, but they’re never going to be the stars of this thing. Glover, Young and Fitzpatrick for sure need to be replaced. Kevin Kisner would be a better fit upstairs with Matt Barrie than playing, and Justin Rose is not the future, either. Are we sure Min Woo Lee is good at golf? Rickie Fowler has to be on a year-to-year contract too.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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