Palm Beach Gardens, FL – Match 8 of season 2 of TGL saw history being made, and The Bay Golf Club came up big when it needed to enroute to an 11-5 win over Los Angeles.
The Bay Golf Club, was the only team still searching for a win, and on Monday night hey brought in reinforcements – young guns, Neal Shipley and Luke Clanton to join Min Woo Lee. For both Shipley and Clanton, it was the maiden voyage into TGL, but you would have never known it by their play.
As Tommy Fleetwood said in the postgame presser, “it felt like we were on our backfoot from the start and couldn’t get any momentum.” The Bay applied the pressure early and often. Starting on the par 3 third, Lee’s tee shot finished just under 9ft from the hole, and Clanton banged it home for the first point of the match..
On the fourth, Shipley threw The Bay’s first Hammer, where par was good enough to win the hole and jump out to a 3-nil advantage.
Then Shipley made TGL history on the fifth, he hit a sand wedge from 110 yards – the shortest hole in TGL. Shipley also birdied the one-shotter at the fourteenth, when The Bay threw its final Hammer of the night and Shipley poured in the 16 ft left to right putt to secure victory.
Min Woo Lee finished off the scoring at the last, with a birdie to win 11-5. “Hopefully we can keep it going. Momentum in sport is a massive deal, and it’s very — especially in a TGL match. Today we were on top most of the time. Last week we were just getting crushed. It’s so hard. You try to keep the happiness and try to keep the spirits high, but when things just don’t go your way, it’s tough. It was nice to be on the other side of it this week, and yeah, win against a very good team.” – Min Woo Lee
BAY earned eight of its 11 points Monday by winning four Hammers: No. 4 (Bay Breaker) – BAY threw the Hammer and won by concession. No. 10 (Quick Draw) – BAY threw the Hammer and won with Clanton’s eagle from 6’0″. No. 14 (On the Rocks) – BAY threw the Hammer and won with Shipley’s birdie from 16’2″. No. 15 (Bonnie Link) – LA threw the Hammer and BAY won with Lee’s birdie from 4’8″.
When asked about the Ace, Shipley couldn’t get the smile off his face, “Yeah, I hit that shot in practice a bunch, and I think I missed the green five or six times in a row, so I think the boys were a little nervous about it, and I was, too. We aimed a little right of the pin, and I tugged it a hair but right on top of it, and it went in, and it was pandemonium after that. Just went crazy.”
Only two points (equivalent to one victory) separates first and last place in the SoFi Cup Standings. With seven matches in eight days from Feb. 23 – March 3, all six teams still have the opportunity to finish the regular season in the top 4 and advance to the playoffs.
The next TGL date is 2/23 – Doubleheader – ATL vs Boston 5pm, LA vs ATL7pm.
