TGL’s opening night was a success relative to context, but now that we are interested there needs to be more.
Hello! My name is RJ Ochoa, and you may not know me around here at Playing Through, but I run our Dallas Cowboys website here at SB Nation (shout out Blogging The Boys) and am an avid golfer, golf fan, and golf enthusiast. It worked out for me that the Cowboys were kind enough to finish their disastrous season just in time for the inaugural TGL season to start and my friend Jack Milko was kind enough on his own to allow me to talk about it!
I think that this context is necessary to evaluate what TGL is, can be and quite honestly should be. I spend so much of my personal life and all of my professional one watching the NFL. It goes without saying that they are the gold standard when it comes to creating a product that people want, need and will flock to. The TGL will never be that, but on Tuesday night it did something very difficult in that it successfully opened the door and walked into our House of Interest. I’m fine making them a coffee and letting them sit down for a while, but if they are going to set up shop then they are going to have to do a little bit more.
To be perfectly clear I am not trying to rush the TGL. They are just off the ground and have yet to even reach the altitude where we are allowed to pull out our electronic devices.
But as someone who was bit by their bug on Tuesday night there are some things that I want to see in the coming weeks.
Here are three.
1. Holes either need to change up or we need a serious relationship with them
Part of what we love about every golf season is the relationship that we have with it. We know the tournaments, the holes, the moments, the history, so on and so forth. Obviously things like The Masters are the peak of this, but the point is that golf fans know intimate details about the golf that is happening on Tour on a week to week basis.
Fully recognizing that we are only one match into TGL, either the holes are going to have to be spiced up or I am going to need to understand why one keeps coming up over and over and over again. The only hole that stood out on the first night was Pick yer Plunder and that was only because of its goofy name. I couldn’t tell you any specific characteristics about any of them and I watched with intense focus. Maybe some of that has to do with the number of new things being thrown out all at once, but part of this golf expedition once again has to be the golf.
TGL has the ability, they showed this off partly, to create holes that aren’t doable in real life because of it being built around a simulator. Why is there not a hole that is surrounded by lava entirely? I know that one hole had lava where water would normally be, but I am talking about breaking the mold of what is conventional. That might be an extreme example, but I would remember that! Imagine when Rickie dunked it in the lava on his approach, people would say!
If you aren’t going to create iconic holes then we have to have memories like the Rickie Fowler one I made up. Maybe they will come with time, but the league would do well to try and open opportunities for it.
2. Obviously this is a show, but let’s relax on some of the production value
If I had to describe TGL to someone who had no idea at all what it was, I would say it was a combination of golf, Top Golf, WWE, a networking event and The Sphere in Las Vegas.
This is clearly not golf, but it is golf adjacent and therefore the golf has to serve as the central focus. I think that I have made this point rather clear.
I’m totally cool with TGL leaning into being an event that takes place in an arena, but we don’t need overhead lights swirling around and going crazy every second like when the new questions were asked on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?. Golf is cool to the people who think that and those who don’t aren’t going to be convinced by smoke and mirrors. Again, this was all the first match so I am not pretending that this is some sort of act going forward.
Some over-the-top assets and variables are necessary to provide momentum and a boost that things like this can ride off of. Hopefully this is that. But at the root of whatever TGL is going to wind up being it needs to be somewhat golf-related and nothing overly fake.
3. TGL already needs to be thinking about and teasing evolutions
Much has been made about the fact that TGL involves a simulator screen the size of Neptune and that is a very cool thing. But need I remind us all… it is a simulator! Use that!
To be clear I mean that this should be used for my genius lava hole suggestion, but also in the way that those of us at home can be a part of. All of these fictitious holes… they should be available in a golf video game immediately. EA Sports, 2k, whoever your preferred maker is… TGL should completely be in partnership with them so that you and I can be picking our plunder on our own and creating relationships with them so that they mean something to us.
TGL has had a long time to think of and plan for the future of whatever it wants to be. Again, I’m saying again again, I recognize that we are one match in, but if you want us hooked then you have to put a lot of meat on the bone for us to eat up. Tease these things. Let us know they are possible. You are finally outside of the box that golf lives in and can think out of it!
Along these lines… golf fans have begged for mixed events for forever now.. TGL is perfectly suited to incorporate mixed teams as well. It can even feature an all-female team, an all-seniors team, the possibilities with the simulator element of golf are endless. We could have Nelly Korda and Jack Nicklaus out here in the exact same way that Matt Fitzpatrick and Wyndham Clark were. Use the outer part of the box!
