TGL’s First Season: What We Learned

TGL’s inaugural season wrapped up last evening with Atlanta Drive GC winning the first-ever championship on the heels of a Billy Horschel putt. With the first season in the books (a year later than expected), there are several takeaways that we can eye up.

What we learned from the first season is that golf is in a very different place than it was even two years ago. As the PGA TOUR and LIV Golf continue to iron out the terms of their coming merger, there are plenty of things we can take away from this first season — and it’s that traditional golf is not the only way to succeed.

Tech Works

Golf is not always played in the traditional sense anymore, and although purists of the game might hate to hear it, fans of the sport come from all angles, including VR, video games, simulators, and more.

Surprisingly, golf ratings did not explode after the game accumulated more and more players during COVID-19, and there’s a reason for that. Broadcasts, at least outside of the Majors, are not super entertaining and fall short of what people want to see. There’s no personality, there’s a lot of commercials, and the quality of the production is just lackluster. In 2025, there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to watch every shot from every player.

TGL dove head-first into a new strategy to attract fans, a modern twist on a classic game. It worked, at least generally. While ratings were higher when Tiger Woods was playing, things were not all that bad. It was an interesting new take on the game that we really had never seen before at the professional level.

Players Were Real

Of course, we see emotion on the course, but players tend to be more closed off and less available when they’re playing 18 holes. TGL fixed that, as we saw many personalities — both brash and bold — be revealed during the season.

Horschel’s putt to put Atlanta Drive in prime position to win the season championship was one example:

Atlanta sportsman all-time power rankings. Argue with the wall

5. Chipper Jones
4. Michael Vick
3. Dominique Wilkins
2. Hank Aaron
1. Billy Horschelpic.twitter.com/tmR9Vvat3c

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 26, 2025

It’s nice to see this kind of reaction from players, to hear the dialogue, and to have them basically bond with fans. This alone will draw more attention. The TOUR is doing this with its broadcasts as well as with in-round interviews with players.

Tiger is STILL the Needle-Mover

Tiger highlighted two of the strongest weeks in TGL – Week 2 with 1,005M viewers, and week 4, when he clashed with Rory McIlroy, with 864,000. The debut week of TGL had 919,000 viewers.

🚨📺⛳️ #TGL RATINGS are in, including Mon. (avg) & Tues. this week (Via @JoshACarpenter)
▪️9P Week 1 — 919K (Debut)
▪️7P Week 2 — 1.05M (TW)
▪️7P Week 3 — 682K
▪️7P Week 4 — 864K (Rory/Tiger)
▪️9P Week 5 — 544K
▪️1/4/7P Week 6 — 365K
▪️7P Week 6 — 546K
pic.twitter.com/S6RoVxCMvX

— NUCLR GOLF (@NUCLRGOLF) February 20, 2025

No matter what shape he’s in or how competitive he might be, Tiger Woods is still the guy golf needs currently. Whether there is the idea of “This could be the week he returns to his old form” or people just want to see him play, Tiger is the key to TGL’s success in terms of ratings.

This presents an interesting problem for not only the league, but golf in general. While there are potentially big draws, there is nobody like Tiger, and there probably never will be.

Perhaps the only person who has attracted that kind of narrative is Bryson DeChambeau, and although he might not have the success that Woods does, he has a very sizeable following and is a great personality who could draw some more people to watch TGL.

Golf is Changing

Golf is not the 18-holes four-times a week anymore that it has been for decades. It is changing, and it is changing fast.

The TOUR truly needed something to change, and this was their idea. It did well, maybe not as well as it would have hoped, but it did draw some attention and drum up plenty of conversation.

Golf needed a modernized solution. It has it, but now, translating that to the actual golf course is going to be the biggest challenge. How can the TOUR keep up the momentum after THE PLAYERS and deliver more strong ratings at future events?

That remains as the big mystery.

Cover Image via PGA TOUR