Palm Beach Gardens, FL – Three weeks ago, (match 10 of TGL season 2) the Los Angeles Golf Club defeated the defending SoFi Cup Champion Atlanta Drive, 7-3, on its path to the playoffs for the second consecutive season. On Tuesday in Playoff Semi Final no.1, Atlanta jumped out to an early 3 point advantage – looking to avenge the regular-season loss and move on to the finals.
Down 4-1 through seven, LA’s solid play and savvy hammer strategy midway through the match saw them run off five unanswered points to take the lead, and close out Atlanta. Fleetwood shined down the stretch not only with his game, but his decision making. The pivotal moment came on No. 14 (Fallen Pine). With L.A up 5-4, both Theegala and Horschel faced par putts inside 6 ft. Fleetwood elected to throw the hammer, putting Atlanta and Horschel in a quandary. Decline and go down two pts with one hole to go, accept and potentially end the match with a missed putt. Atlanta declined the hammer, and went to last down two. The pre-determined hammer put two points and a tie on the table… but Fleetwood came through again, making birdie to tie the final hole and send LA to the Finals.
Justin Rose, who went 2-0-0 in Singles against Patrick Cantlay, made key putts in both Triples and Singles: No. 4 (Fore-0-Fore) – Made birdie from 24’4” (won hole to narrow LA’s deficit to 3-1) No. 13 (Cut the Sails) – Made birdie from 15’10” (won hole to give LA its first lead of the match at 5-4) Rose made more feet of putts made in the match (40′) than he did the entire regular season (38′) Down 4-1 through seven, LA outscored ATL 5-0 over the closing eight holes thanks in part to key shots in the second half from Fleetwood: No. 8 (Bluebonnet) – Eagle putt to 10” and a conceded birdie (won hole when Cantlay missed his birdie putt) No. 9 (Showtime) – 305-yard tee shot to rough (won hole after Gotterup hit in penalty area and ATL declined Hammer) No. 15 (Sterling) – Made birdie from 3’4” (tied hole to advance LA to the finals).
Tommy Fleetwood reflected on the TGL journey, “Well, yeah, I think for sure. I think when TGL started I think all of us can honestly say nobody knew what to expect, but we wanted to be a part of it. Because you didn’t know what was, what it was going to be like. I think very quickly you become close, you become a team, you play for each other, and you’re competitive, and it’s a really cool thing. For us there, of course it’s wildly different to playing on a golf course. But at the same time, there’s so many similarities to it. I was nervous playing the last hole. I loved that I had the opportunity to be playing the last hole for the boys and we could win the match there. And you got to use a lot of the same mental skills that you use every single day. So, but yeah, like, for sure, holing that putt being able to look at the boys and know that we made it to the final, that was awesome. That’s what it’s all about. And it’s just great playing as a team and especially with the team that we’ve got. For me.”
Semi Final No.2 – Jupiter Links vs Boston Common
Jupiter Links Golf Club dominated the singles portion of its semifinal over Boston Common Golf, eliminating the No. 1 seed and earning a birth to the Finals after a 9-5 victory. Entering singles Jupiter led, 4-3, and outscored Boston 5-0 to close out the match on the 13th hole (Jupiter won the 14th after the match was already decided – when Keegan Bradley threw the hammer on Akshay Bhatia to earn two more points).
Jupiter will face the Los Angeles Golf Club on Monday, March 23 at 9 p.m. ET in a best 2 out of 3 match format.
Matched up with Rory McIlroy in Singles, Max Homa was flawless, while the defending Masters Champion struggled. Homa extended his singles run to six consecutive holes won heading into the Finals. Homa hit the Steph Curry head on the pillow – “Night, Night” celebration as the Jup Links celebrated the victory. McIlroy seemed to struggle for much of the night, “I would say, obviously was on pain killers anti-inflammatories all of last week, so just sort of coming off those, just how I would feel on Monday. But felt fine yesterday. Feel fine today. So that wasn’t an issue, thankfully. I think we all improved. I think we all felt more comfortable in here. Great addition in Michael (Thorbjornsen) as well. He really helped us come through those first couple of matches. Yeah, obviously not the way we wanted everything to end, but there’s always next year.”
The unlikelylast-place finish in ’25 to the finals in ’26 began with an epic comeback vs The Bay on March 3rd, narrowly grabbing the final spot in the postseason.
Jupiter advances to the best-of-three Finals, matched up with Los Angeles Golf Club following LAGC’s 6-4 victory to eliminate Atlanta Drive GC Tuesday in the first Semifinal.
Match 1 of the Finals tees off Monday (March 23) at 9 p.m. ET, followed by Match 2 at 7 p.m. Tuesday. A decisive Match 3 will be played at 9 p.m. Tuesday, if necessary.
