PALM BEACH GARDENS — Adaptation of the calendar Inaugural season of TGL The start of the PGA Tour season has been a challenge.
The league, which includes 24 PGA Tour players, had to take into account the schedule and travel of its players, especially at the start of the season, before announcing the 15 matches that will be played at SoFi Center.
“That’s one thing we’ve talked about for a while, is how to make this mesh with the PGA Tour schedule,” Billy Horschel said. “The players had to talk about what events they were going to play and what events they were not going to play.
“So we’ve worked hard to try to make a schedule work for everyone. Some people might have it a little more difficult.”
The tech league created by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy starts Tuesday at 9 p.m. when New York faces The Bay. Each team features four PGA Tour players, with three active in each match.
New York, whose entire team lives in the Jupiter area, will call up Rickie Fowler, Xander Schauffele and Matt Fitzpatrick on Tuesday. The Bay activated Shane Lowry, Wyndham Clark and Ludvig Aberg from Jupiter.
More:Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy TGL explain how the matches will be played, scoring, the Hammer
Cameron Young (New York) and Min Woo Lee (Bay) will not play their team’s first match.
“Anything you throw at us at any part of the season puts a damper on things, so it’s definitely an extra schedule,” Young said. “But we’re going to make it work.”
With matches on Mondays and Tuesdays, TGL has partnered with ONEflight International to offer private jet travel for players who need to quickly get to and from PGA Tour events.
Schauffele, Fitzpatrick, Clark and Aberg were in Hawaii this weekend to play Sentry at the Kapalua Resort. They flew together to Palm Beach County for Tuesday’s season opener.
“There’s going to be some potential conflicts just because it starts all the way through the West Coast Swing,” Fowler said. “I know in my schedule there’s maybe a week, but other than that I think they’ve done a really good job of looking at everyone’s potential schedules.
“They are working closely with our teams and players to ensure that this is not going to interfere with our normal preparation or our normal life on the Tour.”
TGL has a list of top local PGA Tour players as alternates
TGL is ready if a team’s roster is affected by travel issues or injury. The league has a roster of top local PGA Tour players who have joined as alternates and are ready to step in if a team needs a replacement. This list has not been revealed.
After this week’s event in Honolulu, the next five weeks of Tour stages will take place in California and Arizona.
The TGL season ends while the Tour is on its Florida Swing. Of the 24 players on the TGL roster, 11 live in northern Palm Beach County.
“Most of the guys live here, either in Jupiter or parts of Florida, so it’s not that far,” said Wyndham, who lives in Scottsdale, Arizona. “They’ve tried to schedule most of the schedule, so it’s when we play Florida, so it’s just an easy ride or flight.”
“But having said that, the good thing is that the planes are fast and we are used to traveling.”
TGL did not schedule matches the weeks of The Genesis Invitational and The Players Championship. And the season will end before the Masters.
Travel is one reason why McIlroy’s Boston Common Golf won’t debut until the fourth week of the season. McIlroy defends his title at the Dubai Desert Classic, January 16-19.
But when Boston plays its first game on Jan. 27, it will be against Woods’ Jupiter Links, with the league’s founders facing off against each other.
Woods made his TGL debut on January 14 in a match against Los Angeles.
Tom Kim is part of Woods’ team and spoke to the 15-time major champion about how he handled different challenges, including scheduling, during his career.
“It was important for him to become the best player in the world despite these situations.” Kim said. “He kind of adjusted and proved that as well as going through all that, being able to go out and still win, it gave him that edge.
“I’m going to try to use that mentality to try and use everything to my advantage.”
Tom D’Angelo is a senior sports columnist and reporter for the Palm Beach Post. He can be contacted at [email protected].
