TGL, the made-for-TV simulator golf league that just completed its third match on ESPN this Tuesday, may have accidentally hit one in the drink during its broadcast earlier this week.
Through three weeks, TGL has gotten off to a solid start. The first week attracted nearly one million viewers on ESPN, more than its lead-in from a Duke basketball game. Then in Week 2, Tiger Woods’ playing debut lifted the league over the million-viewer mark.
But entering Week 3, there was still one thing golf fans hadn’t seen out of TGL: a competitive match. The league’s first match ended with a 9-2 scoreline, while its second ended 12-1. Neither match had much tension, with teams pulling away early and maintaining leads throughout.
So that’s why in Week 3, TGL would have preferred a match with some drama. But the league perhaps got a bit overzealous in trying to make that happen.
In a mid-round interview with Billy Horschel of Atlanta Drive Golf Club, the eight-time winner on the PGA Tour might have said the quiet part out loud.
FanDuel wants me to gamble on this. Responsibly, of course. pic.twitter.com/3wIGEnXRjK
β Tee Times (@TeeTimesPub) January 22, 2025
“We’re having a great competition,” Horschel told ESPN’s Marty Smith. “Obviously, the last few weeks have been blowouts, and this one isn’t. Jeff [Neubarth] the producer has asked us nicely to keep it close and we’re trying to accommodate him as much as we can.”
Now, it’s pretty clear by Horschel’s tone that he was being sarcastic. The golfer confirmed as much in a post on X Wednesday.
Anyone ever heard of sarcasm or a joke! π€·ββοΈπ€¦ββοΈ. Sorry if I suck at it. ππ.
I think we (both teams) clearly showed that we wanted to win every hole possible. https://t.co/i7djD9xMW3β Billy Horschel (@BillyHo_Golf) January 22, 2025
Nevertheless, even if Neubarth’s comments were made in jest, it’s not exactly the most appropriate thing to joke with players about. TGL understandably wanted a close match (and got a relatively close one on Tuesday that ended in a final score of 4-0).
But given this is supposed to be a serious competition with real stakes, it’s probably best to refrain from those types of jokes, even if they have no real impact on the match.
There’s also a gambling element to all of this. Most major sportsbooks offer wagers on TGL matches. If there’s even a bit of doubt that a producer in the made-for-TV league is meddling in the competition, that could have widespread implications on people’s overall trust in TGL from a gambling perspective. Not to mention, the sportsbooks might be hesitant to work with the nascent league in the future if it has that perception.
It doesn’t seem like this incident is even close to rising to that level of concern. This simply seems like a sarcastic joke made by a producer to a player who unwisely shared that joke on television. If TGL were really trying to artificially create close matches, they’d probably be much more coy about it than that.