We’re still relatively new with this whole team-golf thing, but it’s clear that some pro golfers thrive much more than others in a team-based environment.
In their final regular-season match and the first of two Monday night TGL matches, LA Golf Club topped The Bay GC 5-3 in a match that had a whole lot more personality, showmanship and celebration than TGL had seen earlier in the season. Sahith Theegala, Tommy Fleetwood and Min Woo Lee, in particular, legitimately seemed to be enjoying themselves.
For the evening tilt, Rory McIlroy’s Boston Common GC tried to stay alive in the playoffs against New York GC and a back-from-injury Xander Schauffele. But McIlroy, Adam Scott and Keegan Bradley couldn’t hold off Schauffele, Rickie Fowler and Cam Young. New York GC won 8-6, clinching the fourth and final playoff spot and eliminating both McIlroy and Tiger Woods.
At stake in the first match Monday: the top seed in TGL’s inaugural playoffs. The benefit of that seed is that the three teams in the lower half of the TGL bracket — New York, Boston Common and Jupiter Links — have all struggled far more than the top three teams. Coming into the day, The Bay had not yet lost a match, going 4-0-0, while L.A. had three victories in regulation and one in overtime.
Early on, The Bay held a decided edge. Shane Lowry, Wyndham Clark and Lee won Holes 3, 4 and 6 to leap out to a 3-0 lead over Theegala, Fleetwood and Collin Morikawa. The run featured a near-ace from Clark:
But L.A. evened up the match by winning the 9th on a declined hammer, and then claiming a double-hammer hole on the 10th. That hole, the first singles hole, saw Fleetwood top Lee after the latter’s wayward tee shot.
“With the team, you just get in a rhythm. When I see these guys chip in, I want to play well. I want to hit good shots,” Morikawa said. “You just feed off that energy. I’ve seen it in other team events that I’ve been a part of. But this is very, very fun because it’s just the three of us inside this stadium and essentially like golf, every shot matters.”
After Morikawa and Lowry split the 11th, L.A. claimed the 12th, and with it a 4-3 lead, when Theegala holed out from 20 feet to best Clark:
Lee appeared to wrestle momentum back for The Bay when his approach shot on the 13th rolled to within inches, but Fleetwood rolled in a 21-footer of his own to force a tie. Morikawa and Lowry again tied their hole, leaving Theegala and Clark for the final hole. Theegala forced Clark into a short miss on the 15th and final hole, claiming the match and the No. 1 overall seed for Los Angeles.
“The one thing that surprised me about this whole experience is how much I care and how much I want to win,” Lowry said afterward. “We didn’t know what to expect. I’m pretty pissed off that we lost tonight.”
The blood started flowing early in the evening match, when McIlroy missed a five-foot putt. Pretty much everyone with a memory of last summer’s U.S. Open had the same thought, and New York GC’s social media admin put it into words:
Perhaps it was nerves, or perhaps it was simply the personality of the players involved, but the evening match had all the energy of an 8 a.m. college lecture hall. The score pinballed back and forth — both New York and Boston traded leads and hammers, and the lead stood at New York 5, Boston 4 heading into singles following a Scott hammer:
McIlroy evened the match at 5 by claiming a point in the first singles hole against Young, by far the most reticent of any TGL player. Boston Common has struggled more than any of the other five teams this season, and entered the singles phase needing to win all five holes just to remain in the playoff picture at all. Bradley, the most Boston of all the Boston Common players, rolled in a 16-footer to claim a 6-5 Boston lead.
Schauffele effectively ended Boston Common’s season by draining a putt on the 12th to claim a hammer-aided two points and a 7-6 lead. Young beat McIlroy on the 13th, and then both Fowler and Bradley nearly aced the par-3 14th. Boston threw the hammer prior to the final hole, but Schauffele outplayed Scott and Boston Common’s season came to a close.
The inaugural TGL season is reaching the end of its run; with the Arnold Palmer Invitational this week and The Players Championship next week, the attraction of outdoor golf is growing. TGL’s organizers can’t be pleased with the fact that both Woods and McIlroy, the two biggest ratings draws of the league, have been eliminated from the playoffs … but then, neither one played well enough to justify a postseason berth.
TGL has two weeks of tournaments remaining after Tuesday night’s final regular-season matchup, and at that point it will be just about time for the azaleas to bloom.
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