Tiger Woods makes TGL debut as L.A. Golf Club routs Jupiter Links
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Tiger Woods sinks par putt while mom claps in approval at TGL
Written by Cameron Morfit
PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. – If you didn’t get goosebumps…
If you felt nothing…
If you were at the SoFi Center and merely watched impassively as Tiger Woods was introduced to “Eye of the Tiger” for Week 2 of TGL, the new, six-team tech-infused golf league showcasing top PGA TOUR players, well, you may want to see your doctor.
“I got chills,” Sahith Theegala said, speaking for many.
As for the actual golf? Well, that was another story.
“We were entertaining,” said Woods, whose three-man Jupiter Links team was blown out by Los Angeles Golf Club, 12-1. “We hit a lot of shots, and I think the people here got to see how bad pros can be. It was just a boat-race, oh, my goodness, but we had a great time.”

Tiger Woods’ opening tee shot at TGL
His teammates Max Homa and Kevin Kisner, standing on either side of him, laughed. Kisner had somehow gotten his earpiece stuck in his ear.
Woods hit balls into the water at the second and 13th holes and missed par putts from inside 10 feet on hole Nos. 4 and 9, respectively.
The scene at the par-4 13th hole spoke volumes, with Woods, playing Justin Rose in Singles, strafing his drive but watching anxiously as the ball hung in the air. It found land but caromed backward into the water hazard. He made double.
Woods, admittedly not sharp at last month’s PNC Championship, where he and his son and teammate Charlie finished runner-up, was not sharp Tuesday, either.
“I walked all three rounds at PNC, had a great time there,” said Woods, who made only five starts last season, when he was either fighting back and ankle pain or recuperating from a September microdiscectomy, believed to have been his sixth. “The walking is not the issue; it’s just my game is not very good.”
The record will show Week 2 of TGL was about the scene, not the score.
Woods, one of the league’s founding members, along with Rory McIlroy and Mike McCarley, was the headliner. The SoFi Center was a sellout, dignitaries included Serena Williams and Alexis Ohanian (part of the L.A. ownership group), and tickets on the secondary market were, ahem, expensive.
“This is the match I wanted because Tiger is playing,” said Kyle Lewis of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who is in town visiting his mom and paid $538 for a ticket before dropping roughly $600 in merchandise. That wasn’t counting the Jupiter Links polo he bought earlier and wore to the match.
“With the hype and the music, it gives an NBA vibe,” said Preston Whitehead of East Tennessee, who was at the match with his fiancé, Natalie.
The newly retired U.S. soccer star Alex Morgan was in attendance, as were Charlie Woods and friends, plus Tiger’s mom Kultida.
L.A. ran off to a 5-0 lead through four holes as Jupiter Links kept hitting it in the water. L.A.’s Collin Morikawa, Justin Rose and Theegala made fewer mistakes, and more putts, with Rose especially showing no nerves.

Sahith Theegala makes clutch putt while Jupiter Links watches in disappointment at TGL
By the ninth and final hole of Triples, with Rose having drained another big put to stake L.A. to a 6-1, Jupiter Links was resorting to jokey desperation.
“Charlie, you want to come play?” said Kisner, who has spent much of the last year not competing but in the broadcast booth. “Come sub in. Bring in the righty.”
Woods began the night well enough, throwing the Hammer flag before splitting the fairway with a 3-wood at the opening hole. The two teams pushed it with pars.
In the end, that qualified as a highlight for Jupiter Links.
Homa made the home team’s first error, hitting their second shot in the water at the second hole, but Woods hit their fourth shot into the water, and L.A. won the hole with a bogey. All three of the Jupiter Links players put their team in the water (Kisner, second shot, fourth hole), and L.A. had all the momentum from the start.
Still, as even Woods said beforehand, the score wasn’t the point.
To rip Jupiter Links, or to fault Woods, 49, as he continues to try to come back yet one more time, would be like complaining that TGL may have real grass, but it lacks real sheep, and oh, by the way, the Hammer is flying too far and needs to be rolled back. TGL is entertainment, and on that count is succeeding.

Kevin Kisner thins it off the flag in hilarious fashion at TGL
“We honestly didn't think that anyone could possibly get hit in here,” said Woods, who laughed so hard he cried at Kisner’s skulled bunker shot on 14, which rattled the flagstick and scattered the assembled players and others. “But that was one of the funniest moments I've ever seen, Kis hitting that shot like that.
“We were just dying,” he added. “… It was just one of those weird nights.”
But a fun one, nonetheless.