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What is TGL? Explaining Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s new simulator golf league

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What is TGL? Explaining Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s new simulator golf league

If you were to recreate the sport of golf for the year 2025, what would it look like?

TGL believes it has that all figured out: A prime-time golf league featuring PGA Tour players competing on teams hitting shots against a giant screen and finishing their holes on a shape-shifting putting green in a stadium of 1,500 spectators. Welcome to professional golf’s latest science experiment.

TGL will broadcast its first match at 9 p.m. ET Tuesday on ESPN, and the golf world is anxiously waiting to see how it’ll play out on live TV and in person at the SoFi Center in Palm Beach, Fla. Here’s everything you need to know about the new league ahead of its debut:

What is TGL?

TGL is a 15-week golf series started by TMRW Sports — a company founded by Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Mike McCarley, a former NBC Sports executive, and backed by big-name investors that include Steph Curry and Fenway Sports Group.

The league will take place indoors, in a custom stadium on the campus of Palm Beach State College equipped with a simulator screen that is five stories high, grass tee boxes for full-swing shots and bunkers that are filled with what is believed to be the same sand used at Augusta National Golf Club. Once the players reach the area surrounding the green on each virtual hole, they’ll turn around to the rotating green to complete it. Nearly 600 hydraulic jacks will help change the undulation of the green to distinguish the holes, which were designed by various golf architects with no construction constraints. This is video game golf, after all.

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There are six TGL teams, representing cities around the U.S., consisting of four PGA Tour players each. Throughout the season, those teams will face off against each other live. Then the top four teams will move on to playoffs. The golfers will be mic’d up and shot-clocks will necessitate a snappy pace of play. There will be referees and timeouts like in other major league sports — even smoke and walk-out music will introduce the players to the ticketed crowd. No glass plates or nets separate the fans from the golfers. So yes, a skulled greenside bunker shot could get dicey.


A volcano splitting a fairway? Possible in TGL’s virtual world. (Courtesy TGL)

What does TGL stand for?

Tomorrow’s Golf League

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Who are on the TGL teams?

Woods and McIlroy headline the list of PGA Tour players on the TGL roster, but neither will appear in the first match-up, which is between the New York Golf Club and The Bay Golf Club. The league is operating in partnership with the PGA Tour, which means no LIV golfers have been included. Major champions such as Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka won’t be hitting into the 60-foot tall screen. Notably, the world’s No. 1 golfer, Scottie Scheffler, didn’t sign up either. Here’s the full breakdown of the six teams:

Atlanta Drive GC: Justin Thomas, Patrick Cantlay, Billy Horschel, Lucas Glover
Boston Common Golf: Rory McIlroy, Hideki Matsuyama, Keegan Bradley, Adam Scott
Jupiter Links GC: Tiger Woods, Max Homa, Tom Kim, Kevin Kisner
Los Angeles Golf Club: Collin Morikawa, Sahith Theegala, Justin Rose, Tommy Fleetwood
New York Golf Club: Matt Fitzpatrick, Rickie Fowler, Xander Schauffele, Cameron Young
The Bay Golf Club: Ludvig Åberg, Wyndham Clark, Min Woo Lee, Shane Lowry

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It’s New York vs. The Bay for opening night, with Fitzpatrick, Fowler and Schauffele playing for the former and Åberg, Clark and Lowry for the latter. Lowry has already indicated the tee is his first.

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TGL is big, aggressive and not about the money. That gives it a real chance

What is the TGL format and rules?

Three players from each four-man team will compete in each match-up. The matches will run for two hours and the players will play 15 holes.

In the first nine-hole session, the players will compete in “Triples,” which is 3 vs. 3 alternate shot. Each team will alternate playing until they complete the hole, and the lowest score wins. No points will be awarded for a tied hole, just like in traditional match play.

In the second session, head-to-head play will begin with “Singles.” One player will face off against another player on the first hole, then the second set of players will go against each other, then the third set. That cycle will repeat once more for the full six-hole “Singles” portion.

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Teams can increase the stakes of a hole by implementing a feature called “The Hammer.” If the opposing team accepts, the value of the hole becomes two points, rather than one. If they decline, they effectively concede the hole.

Overtime will be a 3 vs. 3 closest to the pin contest between the teams, until a winner is decided.


The green rotates at the SoFi Center depending on the hole’s layout, with pistons underneath the surface also changing the undulation. (Courtesy TGL)

How long is the TGL season?

The TGL runs from January through March, with the regular season concluding on March 4. Matches will exclusively air on Monday and Tuesday nights, depending on the week and conflicting broadcast schedules. The top four teams after regular season play will advance to a four-week playoff season, with matches on March 17-18 and 24-25.

How to watch

TGL will broadcast on ESPN and ESPN+ at 9 p.m. ET.

(Top photo of Rory McIlroy: Courtesy TGL)

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Toronto Maple Leafs top pick Gavin McKenna reveals that he’s changing his jersey number

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Toronto Maple Leafs top pick Gavin McKenna reveals that he’s changing his jersey number

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Toronto Maple Leafs No. 1 draft pick Gavin McKenna has already been on the ice with the team as it held its development camp this week, but the highly-touted rookie is going to have to make a big change for this fall.

His number.

When he was playing for the Western Hockey League’s Medicine Hat Tigers and then again at Penn State this past season, McKenna wore the No. 72.

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Toronto Maple Leafs top pick Gavin McKenna has revealed that he’ll be opting for a new number for his rookie campaign. (Photo by Brian Babineau/NHLI via Getty Images)

The expectation was that McKenna would wear No. 72 with the Maple Leafs, and he did so this week at development camp. Plenty of fans have also already ordered No. 72 jerseys with his name on the back.

On most rosters, No. 72 is unique enough that he wouldn’t run into any issues wearing it. However, on July 1, the Leafs signed two-time Stanley Cup champion goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, who has worn No. 72 for most of his career, except during his first two seasons with the Philadelphia Flyers, when he wore No. 35.

So, some were wondering how this would work out. Would the Leafs want their new franchise player to get his pick of the number litter, or would they defer to a two-time Vezina winner?

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Gavin McKenna wore No. 72 in juniors, as well as last season at Penn State. (Photo by Richard T Gagnon/Getty Images)

Well, it turns out that McKenna will be the one swapping numbers, and he’ll be switching to No. 92 this season.

McKenna had to get creative here because the obvious number changes were a no-go in Toronto. Adding 7 and 2 would be 9, but that was retired in honor of Charlie Conacher and Ted Kennedy.

Another option would’ve been to flip the digits and go with No. 27, but that was retired in honor of Frank Mahovlich and Darryl Sittler.

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So, 92 it is.

However, McKenna reached out to one of the three previous players to wear the number, Jeff O’Neill, to ask whether he was comfortable with him using it.

It’s fair to say he was down with the idea.

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McKenna will be a key piece of a Maple Leafs team that is looking to bounce back after a nightmare 2025-26 campaign that saw them finish last in the Atlantic Division.

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Dodgers’ Eliezer Alfonzo praying his sister and stepmother will be found in Venezuela

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Dodgers’ Eliezer Alfonzo praying his sister and stepmother will be found in Venezuela

It’ll be the culmination of nine minor-league seasons. But Eliezer Alfonzo‘s major-league debut on Sunday won’t include his family watching from Dodger Stadium.

Alfonzo’s younger sister, Eliana, and stepmother, Patricia, have been missing since last month when earthquakes caused widespread devastation in his home country of Venezuela.

“I’ve been trying to support my dad a lot, every day talking to him, trying to be with him,” Alfonzo said of the elder Eliezer Alfonzo, a retired major-league catcher. “It’s a little tough from here because I would like to be there with him, supporting him every day.”

His father, of course, would love to be in attendance for his son’s debut. He told him as much when he heard the Dodgers were calling him up.

The Dodgers switched their backup catchers Saturday, optioning Chuckie Robinson. They saw an opportunity to give Alfonzo some runway behind Dalton Rushing, with starting catcher Will Smith’s stay on the injured list expected to extend through the All-Star break.

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The elder Eliezer Alfonzo, however, is doing whatever he can to locate his wife and daughter. Their dog was found alive, which gave the younger Eliezer Alfonzo hope.

“We’ve just gotta stay together as a family, as a country,” Alfonzo said. “Because I feel like we’re a beautiful country, we’re a really beautiful people over there. It’s not just about my family, it’s all families that have lost people already. But we’ve got hope. We just pray, we ask God to give them back to us alive.”

Alfonzo’s locker in the clubhouse is next to countryman Miguel Rojas’ stall. Rojas’ wife, Mariana, and their two children were in Venezuela, planning to renew Mariana’s passport and seek Venezuelan citizenship for their children, when the earthquakes hit. They managed to stay safe and have returned to the U.S.

“I just want to be here for him,” Rojas said. “At the end of the day, that’s the best thing I can do for him, is being a good teammate and being a friend for him. Because I know there’s going to be ups and downs. He’s going to have a lot of time to be caught [up] in baseball, and that’s going to probably take his mind away from stuff. But sometimes he’s probably going to feel weak, and he’s going to start thinking about his family. So I’m going to be here, I’m right next to him. And that’s what I told him.”

Rojas, who played against the elder Eliezer Alfonzo for years in Venezuela, reached out Saturday morning and promised him he’d save the ball from his son’s first major-league hit.

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Kylian Mbappé’s seventh goal of the World Cup lifts France past Paraguay in physical Round of 16 match

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Kylian Mbappé’s seventh goal of the World Cup lifts France past Paraguay in physical Round of 16 match

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The United States may not have been in action on Independence Day, but France — who fittingly played an important role in the Revolutionary War — was on the pitch in Philadelphia against Paraguay in a massive Round of 16 clash for a trip to the quarterfinals.

It was a hot day in the birthplace of our nation, and that made things difficult for both teams in more ways than one.

While Paraguay is a great squad, they were significant underdogs against a heavily favored French team led by superstar Kylian Mbappé, who has been lighting it up this tournament.

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French and Paraguayan players get into a shoving match during their Round of 16 match on Saturday in Philadelphia. (Kyle Ross-Imagn Images)

Obviously, the heat itself is a factor, but it also made for a slower pitch, something that was believed to play into the hands of Paraguay.

However, most of the action in the first half was played on their end as France put the pressure on through the first half hour of the match.

It was intense, and that intensity boiled over in the 35th minute with some pushing and shoving after Mbappé and Paraguay’s Andrés Cubas started a wild shoving match.

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But while the intensity ramped up — and stayed high for pretty much the entire game — Paraguay weathered the storm and had every reason to feel good about reaching halftime with the game scoreless.

France got some more scoring opportunities in the early part of the second half, including a near-breakaway for Mbappé.

France’s Kylian Mbappe scored the go-ahead and ultimately game-winning goal against Paraguay on a penalty kick. (James Lang-Imagn Images)

In the 67th minute, France was awarded a penalty kick for a foul against Desire Doue that had to go to VAR for review, and it was Mbappé who took it.

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Mbappé has tended to do most of his damage in the second half, and that trend continued here with him drilling the penalty past Paraguay goaltender Orlando Gill.

That was his 19th career World Cup goal, and his seventh of this tournament alone, tying him with Argentina’s Lionel Messi for the tournament lead.

Paraguay seemed to fade after the Mbappé goal, but turned it on again late, forcing Mike Maignan to make his first save of the day about 89 and a half minutes into the match.

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It seemed like Paraguay’s plan was to try and get a rise out of the French, and they succeeded in drawing three yellow cards. In fact, they even tried to keep that going after the match with players meeting near midfield for some more pushing and shoving.

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But France is moving on, and they will take on Morocco in a quarterfinal match on Thursday in Boston.

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