Palm Beach Gardens, Florida (Sofi Center) – The hometown Jupiter Links were eliminated from playoff contention when NY defeated Boston Common on Monday night in Match 14. Tuesday night in Match 15, the final regular season match pitted the Atlanta Drive – playing for playoff seeding, while Tiger and the boys played for pride.
The Drive jumped out early on the second hole to take a 1-0 lead, when Tom Kim failed to get up and down.
At the 189 yard third, Jupiter made bogey and Lucas Glover poured in the 5 ft par save to put “Hot-Lanta” quickly up 2-0.
On the driveable 312 yard sixth, Nick Dunlap put his tee shot in the penalty area, Tom Kim followed by immediately throwing the Hammer in an attempt to get an easy two points. Atlanta declined the challenge, giving Jupiter Links their first point of the night, 2-1. Little did we know, that would be Jupiters last point of the night and the season.
Hole 7 – 172 yards, Jupiter once again failed to convert their up n down attempt and dropped to 3-1.
The score remained 3-1 until the 167 yard twelfth, which featured Homa vs Dunlap in singles – Homa was greenside in the bunker and Dunlap had a chip from just off the green. Homa blasted out to 5ft, and Dunlap chipped to gimme range forcing Homa to make to tie the hole. He missed, and the tally moved to 4-1.
At the thirteenth, the rout was on. Jupiter’s Tom Kim threw the Hammer vs Horschel. . . . with two points on the line, Billy Ho drained his putt to make it 6-1.
At the 135 yard fourteenth, Atlanta went for the knockout and got it. Tiger vs Lucas Glover . . . Tiger missed the green badly and then misjudged the spin on the chip, finishing 12 feet past. Lucas was safely on for birdie, but when Tiger missed his par putt, the knockout was complete, 9-1.
The match and season ended in bittersweet fashion for Tiger Woods. As the golfer it clearly wasn’t what he was hoping for . . . but probably exceeded the expectations of Tiger the visionary and businessman.
Tiger expounded on all things TGL in the postgame presser: “As an overall big picture of this, we’re trying to grow the game into different demographics, and I think we have. This indoor simulation here is. . . I think has brought more youth to the game. The fact that we’re able to play on ESPN and during primetime, we don’t get a chance to do that very often. We had some late matches, ones that are 9:00 to 11:00, so the fact that we haven’t had golf at those times because we don’t really have that with our daylight schedule, to be able to do that and grow the game and showcase it and
showcase these guys — these guys have bought into the concept, bought into the clubs, the teams they play for, and
you see the teamwork on each team, how the players communicate. They’re really enjoying it.”
Regular season no.1 in TGL history is in the books, now, it’s on to the postseason.
