Tomorrow's Golf League (TGL), the hybrid "real" and digital golf experience contested by teams in a tech-infused warehouse in Florida will kick off imminently, and, maybe, it will enamour Generation Next. Senior Writer Matt Cleary remains a tad sceptical, you could say.
Professional golfers are nerds. And the higher up the rungs of professional golf they ascend, the nerdier they become. And by the time they've reached the top-most golden bricks of the professional golf pyramid, they'll find Eldrick and Scottie and so many Justins, the least cool Cool Guys in world sport.
For to become so very excellent at the single pursuit of golf requires thousands of hours of repetitive practice. It requires hyper-focus, self-discipline and the belief of religious types who bang gongs, or butt their heads against walls, or take a cat-of-nine-tails to their backs because … I dunno, each of us rocks on down to Electric Avenue in singular style.
Regardless! To capitalise upon their unique and really quite lucky blend of genetic bits-n-bobs, aspiring professional golfers spend their teenage years feeding their addiction and hitting balls.
Party at Spriggy’s place Saturday? Nope, hitting balls. Boxing Day Test tickets? Nope, hitting balls. Those girls on the beach? What girls on the beach? Must. Hit. Balls!
Plenty of them spend their time off in church.
And, thus, into their 20s and 30s, as they become fabulously wealthy and famous people - traits which can make a man mysteriously attractive - they remain career-driven types whose lives are dedicated to the hitting of balls.
Even their mates, associates and hangers-on are accountants, personal trainers, psychologists, and not people you’d describe as necessarily very cool.
Bottom line: if you want a review of Tim Winton’s latest novel, to comprehend the Bulldogs chances of snaring the hot-shot draft pick, or a considered precis of the Middle East peace process, you’re not getting the good oil from Viktor Hovland.
And thus, when it’s these people you’re asking to star in, provide the commentary for, and pump the tyres of golf’s latest foray into the future – Tomorrow's Golf League by SoFi, a hybrid of real and virtual golf play, with a rotating green and a referee in stripey top in a mighty and tech-infused warehouse – you’re on a hiding to nothing.
Because as good as Tiger and Rory and Adam are at playing the game of golf, they remain, well, they’re not cool. Maybe they think they are. But they are not.
TGL has been plugging itself on the Fox box in recent days, with these superstars of the show at the forefront. There’s Tiger and Rory “in conversation” with one another, having a chat that’s meant to be casual but manages to be equal parts stilted and awkward.
And they’re sitting there, loose, relaxed, as if they're in an airport lounge bar or something, and they're talking up this new golf product thing that is … well, it is what it is: it's golf in a purpose-built stadium. How much can you say about it?
Balls will be whacked off three types of surface representing fairway, rough and sand. There’s a massive screen that Shane Lowry jokes he hopes he will hit, so nervous will he be to hit that historic first tee-shot. Least funny Irish joke ever.
Now, granted - I don’t know what it will be like. But I have a fair idea. It’ll be awkward. The players will be miked up and you’d find better – and actual - “banter” and “trash talk” on a Saturday afternoon in the members bar. These guys will be acting. They're restricted in how much shit they can put on each other, given the family-friendly timeslot and viral nature of the internet.
It'll be trash talk lite. And they're not that good at it in the first place.
The Australian timeslot for Game One is 13:00 Wednesday AEDST when Lowry will whack off into the digital space, so to speak.
And where then will go the neighbourhood? I don't know. I don't think it's going to blow the NFL out of the ratings war.
I will be watching, of course. But how long, like much of golf outside the majors, until it's just another thing to flick through along with a replay of the 1998 grand final and race three in Taree.
Maybe it will enamour Generation Next. I have a 13-year-old who appears to prefer the world created inside PlayStation 5 to the one outside with the grass and the sky and the Kamikaze kids on e-bikes. He also likes the driving range because of Track Man.
Maybe it'll be like Holey Moley crossed with Almost Anything Goes, but with teams of superstar golfers. Maybe the players will actually put shit on each other. Maybe they'll rail against the shot clock. Maybe they'll argue with the referee, an actual man in white and black stripes, there because golf has never had a referee, and it is, after all, the golf league of tomorrow.
Fox Sports headlined a piece with: “Step into golf’s $110m ‘unknown’... how it can fill glaring void and beat LIV at its own game”.
A theme was that TGL would disrupt the Great Disruptor, because LIV's had ordinary TV ratings and TGL is being shown throughout the mighty tendrils of Planet Fox.
We'll see. Old mate Rupert wouldn't be above owning and showing both TGL and LIV - or better still TGL versus LIV - on his all-seeing broadcast realm.
Revenge of the nerd, indeed.
Related Articles
"More pointless than Pokémon": Tomorrow's Golf League critiqued, and roughly
Rory McIlroy says TGL is 'golf reimagined'
