The first event of Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s indoor golf league, TGL, drew nearly a million viewers on US TV sports network ESPN, according to official industry reports.
Even though the TGL co-founders were not in action, the broadcast on Tuesday, January 7 attracted an average of 919,000 viewers during the 9-11pm ET time slot.
Those figures represent a larger audience than any LIV Golf broadcast on The CW in 2023 and 2024, and also larger than last week’s PGA Tour season opener, The Sentry, on the Golf Channel and NBC, according to Sports Media Watch.
The first TGL match saw The Bay Golf Club (Ludvig Aberg, Shane Lowry and Wyndham Clark) beat New York Golf Club (Xander Schauffele, Matt Fitzpatrick and Rickie Fowler) 9-2 at the SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. The event was attended by a sell-out crowd of 1,500 spectators.
Woods and McIlroy both attended the match and joined ESPN’s commentary team to discuss the action at various points during the broadcast.
Lowry, who hit the opening tee shot, later commented: “It all happens quite quickly when you’re out there, because it’s loud and you’re not kind of used to that. But I enjoyed it. I had an amazing two hours – it’s a lot of fun.”
Aberg added: “I’m always so jealous of basketball and football players that they get to do this every week. It’s cool playing in a stadium. The crowd gets going a little bit more. The energy is different from a regular golf tournament.”
Fowler commented: “This is something fun for the game of golf, and it’s not trying to compete with what we do on the Tour. This is a supplement to the game. Hopefully, who knows, it can open some people’s eyes to what’s possible.”
Sky Sports showed the action live in the UK from 2am-4am, and on repeat the following day, although no viewing figures are available at this time.
The first match in the six-team TGL that features Woods it taking place on January 14, when his Jupiter Links Golf Club takes on Los Angeles Golf Club at 7pm-9pm (12am-2am GMT). McIlroy’s Boston Common Golf will face Woods’ team on January 27.
The 15-match TGL regular season runs until March 4, followed by two semi-finals and a final later that month.
