When youâre starting a new sports league, or really a new anything, youâre always praying for your first viral moment.
For TGL, a new golf league hoping to reinvent the game for a new era and a new audience, that moment came before the first season ever started. In 2024, Tiger Woods, the golf worldâs biggest name and both a player and co-founder in the upstart league, showed up to a not-quite-finished SoFi Center, in West Palm Beach, Florida, where all TGL matches would soon be held. He stood near the center of the stadium, on a football field-sized slab of turf, and started hitting balls into the 53-foot-high simulator screen.Â
The next part seems to make TGL producer Jeff Neubarth laugh every time he tells it. He recounts it to me, months later, standing in almost the exact same spot. Neubarth points up to a tiny camera, barely visible five stories up atop that huge screen. âThatâs camera 91,â he says. âI pointed it out to Tiger, and I said, âItâd be cool if you hit it.â He said, âsure,â dropped the ball, and hit it. First shot.â
The video of the ball flying upward and whacking the camera made the rounds on social media, before most people even knew …
