Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s TMRW Golf League (TGL) is beginning to take shape with the league making a pair of announcements Thursday. The most significant was that TGL has reached a multi-year deal with ESPN making the sports network the exclusive media rights partner of TGL once matches begin in January 2024.
The partnership with ESPN begins Saturday, Dec. 30 with a TGL preview show on ABC before league play gets underway. The first two weeks will see TGL airing on Tuesday nights — Jan. 9 at 9 p.m. ET and Jan. 16 at 7 p.m. ET — before league matchups largely move to Mondays. The debut weeks will air Tuesdays due to NFL and college football.
A detailed schedule for the entire season will be released at a later date. Whether TGL airs on ESPN or ESPN2, games will be simulcast on ESPN+.
TGL also announced Thursday that Shane Lowry, Tommy Fleetwood, Tom Kim and Tyrrell Hatton have been added to the roster with 16 players now committed to play in the inaugural season.
“I have been excited about the TGL since it was announced,” said Fleetwood. “Many of my fondest memories in golf have been playing in team competitions. With the players who have already been announced along with the names and stature of the ownership groups and investors, the league is in position to showcase our sport in a cool format to a new group of viewers and fans.”
In partnership with the PGA Tour, TGL will consist of a 15-match regular-season schedule with playoffs to follow. Six teams will face one another in two-hour head-to-head matches that are meant to be more easily digestable than longer golf events due to their shortened length. Players will strike full shots — both off the tee and approaches into the green — into a simulator with short-game shots happening live in front of fans in the SoFi Center — a new arena built on the Palm Beach State campus in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.
TGL commands the services of nine of the top 20 players in the Official World Golf Rankings. Its roster of players has combined for 29 major championships, 195 PGA Tour victories and 886 weeks at world No. 1.
The rest of TGL’s 16-player roster includes Matt Fitzpatrick, Rickie Fowler, Max Homa, Billy Horschel, Collin Morikawa, Jon Rahm, Justin Rose, Xander Schauffele, Adam Scott and Justin Thomas. Along with Woods, McIlroy, Fleetwood, Hatton, Lowry and Kim, there are only two spots available as TGL plans to have six teams of three PGA Tour players.
The big names associated with the league do not stop with those who are hitting the shots. TGL has previously announced four of six team ownership groups. Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank leads TGL Atlanta. Fenway Sports Group is behind TGL Boston. Reddit’s Alexis Ohanian, Serena and Venus Williams — as well as limited partners Alex Morgan, Michell Wie West, Servando Carrasco and the Antetokounmpo brothers — own Los Angeles Golf Club. Mets owner Steven Cohen fronts TGL New York. The two remaining ownership groups remain unnamed.