Veteran ESPN anchor Scott Van Pelt will lead the network’s coverage of TGL—the new indoor six-team golf league cofounded by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy that launches in January. But Woods and McIlroy won’t be there for the first event.
Van Pelt will host prematch and intermission segments of the primetime broadcasts from his SportsCenter studio in Washington, D.C.
At the SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., where all TGL matches will take place, Matt Barrie will serve as ESPN’s play-by-play announcer and Marty Smith will be a roving reporter.
TGL begins Jan. 7 at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN when New York Golf Club (Xander Schauffele, Rickie Fowler, Matt Fitzpatrick, and Cam Young) faces The Bay Golf Club (Ludvig Åberg, Shane Lowry, Wyndham Clark, and Min Woo Lee).
The team Woods plays on, Jupiter Links Golf Club (along with Max Homa, Tom Kim, and Kevin Kisner), will compete in its first match on Jan. 14 against Los Angeles Golf Club (Collin Morikawa, Sahith Theegala, Justin Rose, and Tommy Fleetwood). McIlroy’s season debut will be Jan. 27, when his Boston Common Golf Club (also Keegan Bradley, Adam Scott, and Hideki Matsuyama) faces Woods and Jupiter Links.
All ESPN talent will have direct communication with the competing golfers, who will be mic’d up, including in-match interviews from Barrie, from the broadcast booth, and Smith, who will have access to team benches. Van Pelt, Barrie, and Smith have all worked on previous golf coverage for ESPN, which in recent years has included the Masters and PGA Championship.
ESPN has a multiyear deal to broadcast TGL, which will use a hybrid competition format featuring a giant 64-by-53-foot simulator screen and a 22,475-square-foot short game area. For the debut campaign, 24 PGA Tour professionals make up six four-player teams that will each play in five head-to-head matches during the regular season.
ESPN gives the league a mainstream sports audience that should help bring in fans beyond hardcore golf followers. Matches will rotate between the main ESPN channel and ESPN2, as well as stream on ESPN+.
TGL is launching one year later than it originally planned, after the air-supported dome at the newly built 1,500-seat SoFi Center collapsed in late 2023. The venue now has a steel-supported roof. The season goes from Jan. 7 to March 4, with playoffs March 17–25.
TMRW Sports, the parent company of TGL, was valued at nearly $500 million in a Series A funding round that was announced in June.
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