Tiger Woods got the better of his TGL showdown with Rory McIlroy in Florida on Monday night as the league’s founders went head-to-head for the very first time.
McIlroy and his Boston Common team made their TGL debuts against Woods’ Jupiter Links outfit, who were out for their second appearance after a 12-1 defeat to the Los Angeles Golf Club back on January 14.
And in the fourth match of the competition, which combines traditional play with elements of simulated indoor golf, Tiger and Rory’s teams put on a show in Florida.
Keegan Bradley and Adam Scott lined up alongside McIlroy, while Woods had Tom Kim and Kevin Kisner on his side.
After an entertaining nine-hole simulator course in triples, the two teams appeared alternatively in some hotly-contested one-hole singles matches, with overtime eventually required.
It proved the TGL’s most exciting night yet as Woods’ Jupiter Links prevailed in that overtime shootout 3-3 (2-0) to earn bragging rights over McIlroy’s Boston Common.
Tiger Woods got the better of good friend Rory McIlroy in their TGL showdown on Monday
Monday’s event was the first TGL match to require overtime, and it also included the league’s first shot-clock violation.
Incredibly, Woods was the guilty party.
The golf legend has experienced just about every conceivable situation in nearly three decades as a professional, but it’s a safe bet he had never incurred a shot clock violation before Monday.
Yet that was the pickle Tiger found himself in after dilly-dallying for too long over an 8-foot birdie putt to halve the 10th hole in Palm Beach Gardens.
Woods was about to pull the putter back when his allotted 40 seconds expired and the buzzer sounded, handing the 15-time major winner an automatic one-stroke penalty, and thus costing him a chance of matching McIlroy’s birdie.
Though the event at the purpose-built 1,500-seat indoor arena was mostly fun and games, he looked grim walking off the green, seemingly muttering just a single inaudible word.
But Woods, as so often, had the last laugh. He made amends three holes later by sinking a 7-foot putt to halve the 13th hole, and he and Jupiter teammates Kevin Kisner and Tom Kim prevailed over Boston’s McIlroy, Adam Scott and Keegan Bradley in a sudden-death pitch-off after the teams had finished the regulation 15 holes tied at 3-3.
The TGL was jointly founded by Woods and McIlroy with TV sports executive Mike McCarley, and Monday was the first time the two superstars appeared together.
Woods’ Jupiter Links prevailed in OT to earn bragging rights over his TGL co-founder
McIlroy’s Boston Common team were making their debut in the new league on Monday night
Players wore microphones to entertain viewers, but Woods said little that was audible, while his loquacious partner Kisner more than made up for it, making more quips than the other five players put together.
The league features six teams and a 15-match season. Monday’s match was the fourth of the season, and the second for Jupiter, who improved to 1-1. It was the first match for Boston.
Players hit tee and approach shots into a simulated screen that has hole layouts, greens, bunkers and anything else you’d see on a golf course. After the ball lands, the rest of the shots and putts are hit inside the facility.
With the teams tied at 3-3 at the last hole, Kim left a greenside bunker shot in the sand, before almost holing his next attempt as the ball caught a piece of the hole but stayed out.
Bradley subsequently missed a 15-foot putt for the win, sending the match to sudden death, in which Woods did not even have to participate.
Kim pitched it closer than Bradley, before Kisner got his attempt inside that of Scott’s, and it was all over.