TGL Week 2 Superlatives: Tiger’s debut, Kisner’s hosel rocket and an itchin’ for friction

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Welcome to Tomorrow Golf League TODAY. Each week from now until the end of TGL’s inaugural season, we will meet here to recap all the physical, virtual and physical-virtual action from the world’s most-hyped professional simulator golf league. But this isn’t any old play-by-play. No, no. That requires too much writing. Instead, we will break down the week’s winners and losers via the most scientific form of analysis known to humanity: Superlatives.

TGL Week 2 is officially history. With the boss man Tiger Woods’ debut on the cards and Serena Williams in the house, the second Tuesday of TGL arrived with plenty of promise, but did it live up to the hype? Let’s dig in.

This Week’s Match:

Los Angeles Golf Club – 12, Jupiter Links G.C. – 1

Best-Worst Performance: Kevin Kisner

Thanks to the magic of Kevin Kisner, this week we’re rolling our best and worst performance categories into one. NBC’s new lead golf analyst showed what happens when you spend too much time in the booth and not enough time on the range, splashing two in the drink, hitting three in the sand and failing to make a single putt, which is ordinarily the strength of his game.

On the penultimate hole of the evening, however, Kisner’s performance went from bad to so bad it’s good when he nearly recorded TGL’s first fatality, striking the flagstick with a skulled bunker shot that was headed straight for his teammates’ foreheads. As Tiger Woods wiped away tears of laughter (and probably fear), Kiz almost jarred his 15-yard chip for what would have been one of the most ridiculous pars in golf history, putting a big rubber stamp on his star/heel of the evening honors.

RELATED: Why TGL players (even Tiger) keep screwing up this easy shot

Highlight of the Night: Kiz buzzes the tower

See above. The level of play on Tuesday was so poor, Kisner’s attempted murder proved to be the one “highlight” of the night that actually stuck. Kiz is a lucky boy, though. Woods later told ESPN’s Matt Barrie that Kisner’s ball was “rising” when it nearly cleaved the flagstick in half. If his shot had clobbered a fan instead of the 1-inch diameter stick, TGL might not have survived to see Week 3.

Most Troubling Trend: Blowouts

The first two matches of TGL have been done and dusted before the singles portion of the evening even began, leaving both squads with nothing to play for but season-long tiebreaker points. To this point, that seems more like a fluke than anything, but if Week 3 is equally uncompetitive, we’ll have to start wondering if there’s more to this trend than coincidence.

Most Confused: Serena Williams 2193967449

Cliff Hawkins/TGL

Serena Williams, women’s tennis GOAT and co-owner of Los Angeles Golf Club, was in attendance for her squad’s inaugural TGL match on Tuesday, and the look on her face throughout was one of pure confusion. That worsened when Serena joined the ESPN booth, attempting to call a few holes despite having very little idea what was going on. In her defense, a triples-and-singles 15-hole half-simulator golf league with a 360-degree rotating green isn’t the easiest thing to explain on paper, but Serena’s reaction on Tuesday begs the question: Did she—or any of the owners really— understand what they were investing in?

RELATED: Max Homa claps back at New York sports radio legend Mike Francesa for his TGL take

Best Big Cat Moment: Eye of the Tiger

Unfortunately, TGL alpha Tiger Woods looked just as rusty on the screen as he has on the course of late, but his melodramatic entrance still delivered the vintage Big Cat energy we were all hoping for. Sure, “Eye of the Tiger” was a little on the nose, but there was no way in hell he was walking out to Katy Perry’s “Roar.”

Easiest Fix: The Hammer

After two weeks of play, TGL appears to have some very tricky problems to fix, but one that shouldn’t be difficult is the Hammer. Last week, we said the Hammer had a lot of potential, but Golf Diget’s resident Hammer skeptic Drew Powell raised some valid concerns. On Tuesday, after an early flurry of Hammer blows, those issues quickly bubbled to the surface when LAGC took a control of not only the scoreboard but the Hammer, allowing them to simply play keep-away with the supposedly match-changing gauntlet. This issue has rendered the Hammer largely impotent in the back half of both matches so far, with the losing team unable to access their only means of mounting a comeback. Thankfully, the solution shouldn’t be too radical:

Give teams a high-risk mechanism for “stealing” back the Hammer. Perhaps they can challenge the Hammer-holders to a closest-to-the-pin contest on par 3s or an eagle challenge on the par 5s, wagering their own points on the board in exchange for the yellow towel. This doesn’t need to wait until Season 2. The TGL concrete is still wet. Much like the NHL, the league should be willing to make rule changes and improvements on the fly, and this feels like a logical place to start.

Most Needed: Villains 2191975066

Sarah Stier

So far, TGL has placed a huge emphasis on Good Vibes™. The players yuck it up with each other, the celebs flash their pearly white veneers course-side and Matt Barrie, well, let’s just say he’s no Johnny Miller on the mic. While this is all by design—the league is clearly geared towards being a fun golf gateway for casuals—it has started to feel a lot of like an exhibition. On Tuesday, as Woods, one of the fiercest competitors in sports history smiled his way through a truly abysmal performance, it became painfully clear:

TGL needs villains.

Sports fans love nothing more than something to hate. Usually that’s an opponent. Sometimes it’s a coach, GM or owner. Heck, we even pick scapegoats on our own teams. TGL is crying out for a few Bad Guys—a T.O., a Nick Kyrgios, a Roger Clemens, a Patrick Reed, perhaps. There has to be some friction, because friction is inherent in competition. Without it, TGL will always feel like empty calories. Maybe a fiery guy like Atlanta Drive G.C.’s Billy Horschel can provide that spark. Or maybe recent match-play controversy alumni like Patrick Cantlay and Tom Kim will martyr themselves for the cause. As we all learned at a young age, there can be no Batman without the Joker.

RELATED: This NFL star is doing a massive golf club giveaway: ‘Y’all let me know what you need’

Soundbite(s) of the Night: Hell hath no fury like …

More proof that all men really want to do is make the women in our lives happy … we just aren’t very good at it.

Big Winners: Caddies

There are some who walk among us [cough Alex Myers cough] who believe that caddies are a myth invented by Big Golf to drain us of our hard-earned cash. Tuesday night provided a compelling counterargument, however, as several of the PGA Tour’s top pros looked downright mortal without their trusty loopers whispering in their ears. Distance control was a massive issue for players all night, as was risk management, with many players opting for overly aggressive lines or missing to the wrong side on repeated occasions. The Jupiter Links squad also struggled to read putts, making just one longer than five feet all night. There were plenty of losers after Tuesday’s tough watch, but it certainly wasn’t the caddies sitting at home wondering if now would be a good time to ask for a raise.

Most Heartwarming Moment: A proud papa https://www.golfdigest.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2024/12/murlitheegala.jpg

While Tuesday had more “AHHH!” worthy moments than “awww” worthy moments, Sahith Theegala’s dad Murli delivered plenty of feels after his son stuck a 212-yard dart to six feet for an excellent eagle look on the final hole of the night. Cameras cut to Murli in the stands, leaping out of his seat, high-fiving random strangers around him, grinning ear to ear. The Theegala patriarch isn’t an investor in TMRW Sports. He’s not a golf YouTube star, tech CEO or former athlete. He’s just a proud dad, and although the shot meant nothing in terms of the result, it meant everything to him.

RELATED: Sahith Theegala pledges $100 per birdie and $250 per eagle at the Sony Open toward L.A. wildfire relief

Most Important Distinction: These are great golfers, not great simulator golfers

Tiger Woods, Xander Schauffele, Rory McIlroy, Collin Morikawa, Hideki Matsuyama, Ludvig Aberg. To say TGL boasts some of the best golfers on the planet is not a stretch. The problem, which became clear as Tuesday’s night chop-fest unfolded, is that simulator golf is a very different discipline. Though TGL’s roster boasts 13 major winners, South Korea’s top simulator pros would wipe the floor with any one of them in a head-to-head screen match, so why aren’t they the ones we’re watching?

Simply put, the level of play hasn’t been sharp enough through two weeks, and the carnage, apart from Kisner’s hosel rocket, hasn’t been that fun to watch. It’s one thing to watch Jean van de Velde take off his socks and wade into the burn with an Open Championship on the line. It’s another to watch a guy splash one in a virtual water hazard, take a drop two feet away and hit it back into the same screen. There’s plenty of reason to believe these guys will get the hang of it—they have the raw ability, work ethic and the professional nous to do anything with a golf club in their hands—but the question is whether they’ll improve fast enough to make the rest of this season worth watching.

PREVIOUS TGL SUPERLATIVES

Week 1 – New York Golf Club vs. The Bay Golf Club

This article was originally published on golfdigest.com