Palm Beach Gardens – On Sunday, several players and officials from the new women’s indoor golf league – WTGL, gathered to show off their team colors and hit a few shots in “game mode” for members of the assembled golf media.
The Sofi Center is one of the unique vibes in the game, loaded with high-tech video boards, brilliant effects, and synthetic turf wall to wall… an overload of the senses, as I refer to it to those who haven’t been inside the arena. On November 8th, the finest female players in the world will take to the primetime stage to show the ESPN audience what they can do under the lights. It’ll be Los Angeles Golf Club vs. New York Golf Club.
Three mic’d-up players from each squad will do battle for each televised two-hour match. How will the teams manage to employ the Hammer strategy? Will the women’s game produce even better banter than the men did in seasons 1 & 2 of TGL?
WTGL drafts on the past two seasons of the men’s TGL with a distribution platform of the mighty Disney/ESPN (and ION) with multiyear rights. WTGL will begin on November 8th, and will appear on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and ION networks. Thanksgiving weekend is the league’s big doubleheader, which airs on November 29th. The season consists of 10 regular-season matches in a six week period Nov. 8th – Dec. 15th, the semifinals take place on Dec. 20th & 21st. WTGL ends its maiden voyage with a best-of-three championship series on Dec.22nd – 23rd.
The five founding teams and rosters for the inaugural season are:
Each team has star power with a minimum of two marquee players; for example, Atlanta: Charley Hull, Minjee Lee. Boston: Megan Khang, Lottie Woad. Los Angeles: Michelle Wie, Gaby Lopez. Teams like Detroit have more than two: Brooke Henderson, Jeeno Thitikul, and (semi-retired) Lexi Thompson. New York GC has three as well, with Lydia Ko, Rose Zhang, and Linn Grant.
Tickets are on sale now, SoFi Center. The big question is: Can the WTGL grab and grow a significant audience in the shadow of the PGA Tour/LPGA season and with the almighty NFL season in full stride?
