Golf is officially becoming a revolutionary experience. Tuesday evening marked a big and historic night for the sport, as the first match of the brand new TGL golf league took place between The Bay Golf Club and New York Golf Club. Founded by Stanford legend and world-famous golfer Tiger Woods, the inaugural event marked an important step in the world of golf.

The league, which Woods co-founded with PGA star Rory McIlroy and business partner Mike McCarley, represents a new way for fans to enjoy the sport. Combining real golf with indoor simulators and featuring many prominent professional golfers, each event is held on weeknights in head-to-head match style with each team playing five regular season matches before a playoff tournament is held.

Typically in golf, PGA and sometimes LIV golfers play in tournaments that feature a giant field, where each golfer plays to make the cut and climb the leaderboard. But when it comes to TGL, golfers are put on teams, with six total teams fielding four players each.

In addition to New York Golf Club and The Bay Golf Club, other teams include Atlanta Drive GC, Boston Common Golf, Jupiter Links Golf Club and Los Angeles Golf Club. Golfers that will feature in the league include Woods, McIlroy, Rickie Fowler, Xander Schauffele, Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, among others.

In the first match of the new league, The Bay Golf Club took home the 9-2 win in what was a 15-hole match. Each hole won is traditionally worth one point, but opportunities arise in which a team may score two or three points on any given hole.

If a hole is tied, no points are awarded while overtime is allowed if tied after 15 holes. However, with strong matches from The Bay’s Shane Lowry and Ludvig Aberg, who both recorded birdies early on to set the tone, they were able to pull away and win the first match.

As for where the matches are played, each event this season will be held at SoFi Center, an indoor facility in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida that was built specifically for this league.

Originally expected to begin in January of 2024, a power failure caused by a storm resulted in some damage to the facility which forced the league to delay competition for a full year.

But now with the league up and running, anticipation has been mounting. Once the first matchday finally came, all the action was shown live on ESPN, with SportsCenter anchor Scott Van Pelt providing pre-match coverage.

During the match, commentary is varied, with Matt Barrie calling the action from the facility as well as each player and caddie being mic’d up, allowing them to provide comments in-game to make it feel more authentic.

The concept is definitely an interesting one, and with a successful first night that saw successful ratings, it will be intriguing to see how the rest of the season goes and how much of Tiger Woods’ influence will rub off on the rest of the golf world.