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TGL, the new indoor professional golf league created by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, hasn’t even launched yet, but there are already talks of expansion into the women’s game.
Using a hybrid virtual format that will combine simulator golf with a real-life short game area, TGL—which has signed up 24 PGA Tour members split into six teams—will debut Jan. 7 at the 1,500-seat SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
While the focus remains on a successful Season 1, a TGL spokesperson confirmed to Front Office Sports that discussions have taken place with the LPGA about collaborating in the future.
Speaking at the CME Group Tour Championship in Naples, Fla., on Wednesday, LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaann said the tour had been “exploring some synergies with TGL” amid efforts to better market LPGA golfers.
“We’ve been talking to them for a while,” Marcoux Samaann said when asked specifically about TGL. “It will be great to get our athletes in different positions. You know, with different exposure, different innovation in golf. The LPGA should be in every conversation about golf. So we’ve been talking to those guys for a long time, and I think we’ll try to figure something out—how we can work together, whatever that looks like.”
A source familiar with the talks tells FOS that TGL could look to eventually incorporate a mixed men’s and women’s event, or even create a standalone women’s league.
TGL, which has a media rights deal with ESPN, could offer a more compelling TV product than traditional golf for men and women playing together, since the virtual aspect of the format would allow for all golfers to tee off from the same place. Typically, in other mixed golf events, men will tee off up to 50 yards or more behind the women.
Recently, the top men’s and women’s golfers have been playing together more often.
In February, McIlroy and Max Homa, who is a member of Woods’ Jupiter Links TGL team, played in the only version of The Match made-for-TV golf series to date to incorporate female golfers. McIlroy defeated Homa and LPGA pros Lexi Thompson and Rose Zhang, winning $2.4 million for charity.
Next month, the Grant Thornton Invitational—a co-sanctioned PGA Tour/LPGA Tour event established in 2023—will return for a second year. Zhang and No. 1-ranked Nelly Korda are among the top women committed, along with PGA Tour and TGL stars Rickie Fowler and Sahith Theegala.
At the Solheim Cup in September, U.S. team captain Stacy Lewis called for better collaboration between the professional men’s and women’s games, and suggested that the biennial Presidents Cup, featuring U.S. and international teams, become a mixed event.
The International Olympic Committee is also considering a proposal to add a 36-hole mixed-team golf tournament to the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
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