PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. —There are plenty of questions surrounding the release of TGL Tuesday evening, but one thing is for sure: Golf has always felt this little like WWE.
On ESPN, shortly after 9 p.m. ET, Rickie Fowler, Xander Schauffele, and Wyndham Clark may emerge from a specially constructed access hole to their own pieces of design music surrounded by bright beams and smoke. The grappling connections continue behind the scenes, with the addition of several employees with experience in the WWE, including one with the task of adding some theatricality to the normally tense sport.
Mike McCarley, the leader of TGL, jokingly explained the options,” I grew up a professional wrestling enthusiast.” But frankly, the thoughts extend beyond the square circle.

The UFC’s LEDs around its hexagon were visible on the boards that surround TGL enjoy. As the arena plans came up, McCarley ——then NBC Sports ‘ president of golf and international strategy—and different executives visited Overtime Elite’s internet-age venue in Atlanta, gaming centers and also Cirque du Soleil performances in addition to more traditional golf options.
There won’t be anything staged about TGL’s debut, but the company still spent plenty of time—and more than$ 50 million —on its stage, a futuristic blend of greenery and screenery inside a new arena in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
Asked about the movie’s roots, McCarley stepped up to 2013, when The Players Championship was updating its playoff structure, expanding from a single-hole unexpected death problem to a three-hole playoffs. McCarley suggested installing lights along the tee box, course, and efficient to encourage primetime competition on the 18th.
” You had roof the whole place if you could”, past PGA Tour director Tim Finchem responded.
” I was like,’ That’s a great idea,'” McCarley said. That one question—what if sport may be played in? —spawned hundreds more. If you could play sport in a coliseum-like setting, what else might be possible?
TGL would need to use model systems to allow players to play whole rounds of golf without being obscured. That involved determining how much players would be from the camera, how big of a display would be, and other factors. It also involved finding the ideal combination of ball-tracing and virtualization tools.
Around the playing place, camera placements took precedent as TGL’s SoFi Center was designed. ” This was built, truly, for kind of a prime-time television knowledge”, McCarley said.

In that way, TGL is also a homage. As the business looked for a Q1 sports home to partner and, most importantly, sought a primetime TV appearance in the face of so many events and customers who moved online, SoFi CEO Anthony Noto was one of the first to understand the concept from the beginning.
” My view is, when you put the best golfers in the world on a Full Swing simulator game, it’s going to really work”, Noto said. ” People will forget that it’s a simulation”.
The grass players hit their drives off will be 100 % real. Outside of the venue, massive sod pallets have been growing. Prior to each game, lighter slices are delivered via chains hanging from the ceiling.
Photo by Greg LOvett/Palm Beach Post/USA TODAY Network via Imagn Images

It was also difficult to prepare the grass for indoor play. Tahoma 31 Bermuda grass, which was created specifically for golf and football turf, will be used by TGL. Thin layers of surface are grown on plastic, allowing it to live mostly outside before being brought indoors for a short period of stress—cool temperatures, harsh lighting and metal thrashings. A few days before each match, grass is brought indoors to help with climate adaptation, which are then helped by LED grow lights.
There’s also real sand, the maintenance of which is even more precise. Tanner Coffman, TGL director of turf management, irrigates the bunker areas at the SoFi Center to keep the humidity at 11 %. In case anyone happens to see what’s underneath the grains, white turf has been installed below TGL’s sand trays.
In many ways, Coffman is tasked with keeping a Bonsai golf course, a miniature version of the real thing. He said,” I’m finding other ways to do things that groundskeepers have done for years.”
All shots beyond 50 yards of the hole are played from one of three Coffman-maintained trays—sand, fairway grass or thick rough—lined up next to each other facing a 64-foot jumbo screen.
On TGL’s flexible green area, which spins and lifts various locations and presents new challenges for golfers, closer attempts are marked. Based on where their shot wound up in virtual space, a light beamed from the ceiling, named Skymark, shows them where to place the ball. After testing revealed that the advanced carpet performed more like traditional grass than natural fibers would when installed atop all the machinery, artificial surfaces are used for the green area.

And just because it’s fake doesn’t mean it’ll be easy. Golfers have argued that the absence of imperfections on the surface makes lining up putts more difficult, as does the perfectly level overhead lighting above them.
One TGL staff member spent years developing arena golf, while another team focused on how it would actually play.
To create TGL’s scoring format, competition rules, and season structure, as well as a system that could combines digital measurements and real-world actions into a single stats platform, consultants from CapTech were hired. The new game needed to be competitive, it needed to be fast-paced and it needed to feel like golf. Teams of three golfers will alternate shots on each hole for the duration of each match before facing off against each other on the following holes.
Some newly constructed holes have the same layout as the tracks a golfer might find at a prestigious course, while others feature massive bunkers, fairway chokepoints, or active volcanoes that were intended to put players to the test. Yes, volcano.
Fans could also be able to take up the sport in new ways, possibly by entering hole designs in upcoming competitions or playing the virtual course alongside pros from all over the world.
We’ll look back at night one or month one and see what TGL will be in February, March, and 2026, and how similar it would be if you visited Amazon.com in 1999, according to CapTech director Roberto Castro, who previously spent nine seasons on the PGA Tour. ” It will look that much different”.
In year one,$ 21 million is up for grabs, including a$ 9 million prize for the winning team.
After TGL constructed a new course and a new version of the game, it was time to devise a strategy for broadcasting it. That was the whole point, anyway, right?
Matt Barrie will take play-by-play duties for TGL’s broadcast booth, but the active competitors on the course, who will all be mic’d up, will be left with the mic-upped color commentary.

” There’s always been this dream and idea of, like, wouldn’t it be cool to ask Rory]McIlroy ] what he’s going to do, as opposed to ask someone next to you who’s going to say what Rory should do or might do or could do”, TGL lead producer Jeff Neubarth said. ” We’re going to be among the first to really ask the players,’ What are you going to do?’ Or to ask them,’ What did you just do?'”
To coordinate with events occurring in the virtual world, an experienced audio team also recorded new golf sounds, such as those that splash into water or jump off trees.
Making the most of the digital footage, which shows the golfers in the SoFi Center as well as the unreal holes they’re playing, will be one of the biggest challenges. Neubarth has analyzed thousands of video game clips to understand how viewers react to them, taking screenshots of them from his phone and sending them to his team to replicate in their broadcasts. For instance, TGL will use a virtual camera to follow the ball through the air as a drone would if it were possible in the modern world. As part of a mix of 70 visual sources producers can choose from throughout the night, there are overhead cameras that offer unique views of the players lining up their shots.
” I want people to say,’ I’ve never seen golf covered like that before,'” director Johnathan Evans said.
TGL has put on numerous rehearsals ahead of Tuesday’s debut. However, before the league’s opening game, New York Golf Club and The Bay Golf Club will walk through smoke and light and leave many questions unanswered.
Has TGL truly remade high-level golf indoors? Or has it created something else entirely?