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PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. -- When the inaugural play of TGL launched astatine the SoFi Center past week, Ireland's Shane Lowry forgot to bring a tee to the hitting country to deed the archetypal thrust successful the past of the tech-infused play league.
It was 1 of the lighter moments successful TGL's opening night, which for each intents and purposes delivered what had been promised: squad play being played connected the largest simulator successful the satellite successful a state-of-the-art facility.
TGL figures to get adjacent much eyeballs Tuesday night, erstwhile Tiger Woods and his Jupiter Links GC squad instrumentality connected Collin Morikawa and the Los Angeles Golf Club (7 p.m. ET, ESPN/ESPN+).
The opening nighttime was the culmination of much than 8 years of enactment by TMRW Sports CEO Mike McCarley, Woods, Rory McIlroy and others successful getting TGL disconnected the ground.
McCarley spent much than 2 decades arsenic an NBC Sports executive, archetypal focusing connected "Sunday Night Football" and the Olympics, and past was president of Golf Channel and caput of the network's play sum from 2011 to 2021.
It was during the 2016 Summer Olympics successful Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, that McCarley archetypal came up with the thought of launching play arsenic a squad sport.
"What you recovered yourself doing successful the 4 years successful betwixt Olympics is spending a batch of clip with assorted sports due to the fact that they privation to find retired however they could amended contiguous themselves connected TV 4 years later," McCarley said. "You're helping them find small things that a athletics tin bash amended connected TV."
While starring NBC's play coverage, McCarley realized that U.S. Opens played connected the West Coast -- successful premier clip connected the East Coast -- were TV ratings bonanzas, and squad events specified arsenic the Presidents Cup, Solheim Cup and Ryder Cup created much play and hostility than idiosyncratic stroke-play tournaments.
"They're connected a team, truthful they're having much conversations with each other," McCarley said. "They're having existent reactions with each different that they wouldn't person successful an idiosyncratic event. The squad quality of it and the prime-time portion of it intensifies the drama."
In 2020, McCarley acceptable retired to make a play situation that "feels a small spot similar gladiators walking into the Coliseum, and a small spot much of a unit cooker due to the fact that there's a changeable clock."
McCarley's archetypal TGL transportation was made to the Maximus of men's nonrecreational golf, 15-time large champion Woods, successful December 2020. McCarley had tossed astir the thought with Woods' agent, Mark Steinberg, and longtime ...
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