Golf has found itself in a bit of a rut recently. The great divide between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf has taken much of the fun out of the professional game in recent years. With the world’s best players now split between two tours, golf fans have struggled to find meaning in any competition outside of the four majors.

On Tuesday, the sport may have gotten a much-needed spark.

TGL, the technology-infused simulator golf league founded by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s TMRW Sports, debuted on ESPN. It was golf, live and in primetime. And it was beautiful.

Don’t get me wrong, TGL was not without its obvious warts. But overall, the product delivered on its promise and then some.

From minute one the competition felt big. Not in the sense that the stakes were massive or anything. After all, this was just a regular season match between New York Golf Club and The Bay Golf Club — two teams that hadn’t played a single hole of competitive golf until Tuesday. But ESPN’s presentation of the match felt big.

Scott Van Pelt lent his gravitas right from the get-go by conducting pregame interviews with several of the players. Matt Barrie, the league’s play-by-play voice, gave a quick rundown of the rules. Then, the players were given NBA-style arena introductions.

It truly felt like a golf match crossed with an NBA game, right down to the crowd shots of celebrities sitting “course-side.”

When the match started, TGL’s main value proposition became readily apparent. The action was fast and furious. The 40-second shot clock ensured that — unlike past attempts to gamify the sport of golf like TNT’s The Match series — viewers weren’t reliant on chitchat between shots for entertainment.

The rules were simple enough to follow. Teams of three alternated shots and whichever team holed out in the fewest strokes got a point. After nine holes, the format switches to singles for the final six holes where one member of each team plays their own ball for the entire hole. The one twist is “the hammer” which, when thrown, can make a hole worth two points.

Players hit their tee shot and approach shot into a giant, five-story simulator screen off of real grass (or sand). Once inside a certain distance, players move into the short game area — a giant rotating putting surface with pneumatics that can change the undulation of the green.

This is one of the areas that needs some work. Despite the obvious effort to make the small ball part of the competition realistic, the short game area doesn’t really behave like a real greens complex. It’s not quite mini golf, but it’s also not not mini golf.

Ludvig! Let’s gooo pic.twitter.com/pTXCoDE3BX

— TGL (@TGL) January 8, 2025

The rest of the competition, however, is phenomenal. The simulator worked flawlessly with no technical glitches. The broadcast cut into the simulator during most shots, giving viewers a look at the ball flight and where it would end up. The best part? The holes weren’t traditional golf holes. They were designed specifically for competitive simulator golf.

What does that mean? It means golf holes designed with extreme risk-reward scenarios in mind. Holes that are better suited for match play than stroke play. TGL was even able to take some creative liberties, with holes being played over virtual lava, and tee shots that feature three separate fairways players can take aim at, each with its own set of pros and cons.

The league seemed to thread the needle perfectly between adding features that make the competition more compelling without making it feel like a gimmick. That translated to the players as well. It was refreshing. Guys weren’t toiling over every shot with the precision of an aerospace engineer like they do on the PGA Tour. Instead, they just let it rip. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t competitive, the players were clearly taking it seriously. But the tedium inherent in a normal golf tournament just wasn’t there.

Other than the competition itself, the broadcast has some kinks to work out, but overall hit its marks. Matt Barrie did a relatively good job throughout, though his interview with Tiger Woods during the middle of the match was a bit awkward. Given that it’s the first-ever TGL broadcast, one can’t expect perfection. And the quickfire action made any extended silences a bit of a non-factor anyway.

Co-founder Tiger Woods in the booth for @TGL.

“Considering this was just a dream conjured up… it’s hard to believe that dream came into reality.” ⛳ pic.twitter.com/KFzIOGmrHw

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 8, 2025

The production, as should be expected in a made-for-TV league, was excellent. It seemed like every inch of the arena was covered by one camera or another, so there was always something interesting to cut to; be that a golf swing, a reaction shot from the golfers, or crowd shots of the live audience. The graphics were superb. They were clean, unobtrusive, and conveyed all the relevant information.

The only thing that went sideways during TGL’s inaugural night was the match itself. New York Golf Club (featuring Xander Schauffele, Rickie Fowler, and Matt Fitzpatrick) got absolutely steamrolled by The Bay Golf Club (Wyndham Clark, Shane Lowry, Ludvig Åberg). The final score was 9-2, but The Bay GC officially won the match when they went up 7-1 (with possession of the hammer) after just the 10th hole. (All 15 holes are still played for season-long tiebreaker purposes.)

Fitting an entire golf match into a tidy two-hour television window is no small feat, but TGL pulled it off in a way that felt like this project could have legs long-term. With the league’s decision to strategically schedule on winter nights where its only competition is regular-season NBA, NHL, and college basketball, it feels like there’s a very real chance TGL can carve out its own niche.

There’s a long way to go before that becomes a reality. But Tuesday provided a proof-of-concept that was very promising.

For men’s professional golf in 2025, that’s about as encouraging as it gets.