Wyndham Clark’s Bay Golf Club team raises the curtain on TGL with a laugher of a win in indoor golf league’s debut in primetime on ESPN
By Gary Baines – 1/7/2025
Five time zones and almost 4,800 miles removed from where he was playing tournament golf on Sunday, Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Wyndham Clark helped lift the curtain Tuesday night on TGL, one of the big new concepts in elite-level pro golf.
And he did so in a lopsided winning way for his team, it should be noted.
The Denver native was one of six players competing Tuesday night on ESPN in the inaugural match of the primetime indoor team golf league which relies heavily on simulators. Clark’s Bay Golf Club (also featuring Ludvig Åberg and Shane Lowry) squared off with New York Golf Club (Xander Schauffele, Rickie Fowler and Matt Fitzpatrick) at the SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. That’s a long way from Maui, where Clark finished 15th on Sunday in the PGA Tour’s season-opening Sentry tournament.
But if Clark — or Åberg, also who competed in The Sentry — was suffering from jet lag in the wake of the long-distance turnaround, it certainly didn’t show on Tuesday. They and their Bay Golf Club teammate this night, Shane Lowry, made the TGL debut match a rout. Clark’s squad won five of the first six holes in building a 6-0 lead, with Bay Golf Club earning 2 points on the third hole when Clark drained an 8-foot par putt after winning a hammer — essentially a press. Then Clark and Co., rode that big advantage to a laugher of a 9-2 victory over New York Golf Club.
“I thought it would be a little more of a match, to be honest,” Clark said afterward. “They’re a great group of players (and) in our simulated practice (Monday) they were beating us pretty bad (down 6-0 after three holes) and we kind of came back. So we thought it was going to be closer tonight. We were a little shocked. …
“(TGL) is a game. It’s not necessarily pure golf. There’s a little more game and trick to it. I feel like we got really comfortable with it (tonight). I will say we had a lot of fun. I feel like no one had more fun out there than us. We were laughing. … We’re excited to be part of this.”
Fowler compared the TGL atmosphere to “a glorified man cave, in a way.”
Clark hits a shot into the simulator during Tuesday’s match in Florida.
“It was awesome,” noted Åberg, who sank what Clark called a 1-in-1,000 putt for a birdie from 32 feet on the fifth hole. “This whole stadium-like feel is awesome. … The whole idea is amazing. … I think this is the future — where the game is going to head.”
Playing indoors — and on a simulator on many shots — certainly has a different look and feel, for both the competitors and the spectators on TV.
“It’s not traditional golf, but it is golf,” said Tiger Woods, who along with Rory Woods are co-founders for TGL.
“We’re the guinea pigs. You’re going to go on the road with us,” Fowler noted on ESPN before the competition started.
Even some PGA Tour players not competing on Tuesday got in on the act.
“Throw the hammer @RickieFowler @XSchauffele @MattFitz94 !!!!That or ask for life support ASAP (laugh emoji),” Justin Thomas wrote on X after the New York team dug a big hole.
Clark drains a putt that secures 2 points on Tuesday.
Each of the six teams in TGL plays five regular-season round-robin matches. (Clark’s Bay Golf Club also competes Feb. 17 twice, Feb. 25 and March 3.) The top four teams in the regular season advance to the playoffs, which include the semifinals March 17 and 18, then a best-of-3 Final Series March 24 and 25. The total purse for the competition is $21 million, with the winning team receiving $9 million.
On Tuesday, Clark set up a 9-foot Åberg birdie on the first hole with a 97-yard approach, and the Valor Christian grad made the 2-point par on No. 3 during the alternate-shot team portion of the competition. Then in singles vs. Matt Fitzpatrick, Clark won the 11th hole with a conceded birdie from 5 feet.
The Bay Golf Club’s “caddie” on Tuesday was another Valor Christian alum. Josh Seiple, which added to the winning festivities for the team.
Josh Seiple (white shirt), like Clark a Valor Christian graduate, helped caddie for the Bay Golf Club team.
Clark isn’t shy about doing some trash talking under the right circumstances, but he said opportunities were limited for that on Tuesday given the lopsided nature of the match.
“In card games and everything I do I’m very competitive. I enjoy it,” he said. “(But) there wasn’t much to trash talk about (because) we were beating them so bad.”
But Clark wouldn’t be surprised if the concept behind TGL catches the fancy of golf fans — or just viewers in general.
“As this continues to grow — and I really think it will — and we get better at playing the game, the trash talking, and there starts to become some rivalries between teams and more banter, I just think people are going to enjoy it,” he said. “The SoFi Center is unbelievable, the technology is amazing. We’re having a lot of fun. We just hope it translates into viewership, and I think it will. It’s the most fun we’ve ever had playing golf. I think people love seeing us have fun and smile. Maybe it gets big.”
Tiger Woods, one of the co-founders of TGL, enjoyed the action on Tuesday.
Schauffele came into the match ranked No. 2 in the world, while Åberg is No. 6 and Clark No. 7. Clark is a three-time winner on the PGA Tour — with one of those victories coming at the 2023 U.S. Open — who was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame on Dec. 1. He recently received $3.5 million from the PGA Tour’s Player Impact Program (PIP) for 2024, with PIP awards based on internet searches, earned media, TV sponsor exposure, general population awareness and golf fan awareness.
Tuesday’s 15-hole match included nine holes of Triples (3-on-3 alternate shot) following by six holes of Singles (Clark faced Fitzpatrick on holes 11 and 14, for instance). Each hole was worth 1 point to the team with the fewest strokes, while tied holes count for 0, with no carryovers.
In TGL, players hit full shots — off real grass and sand — to a 64-foot-by-53-foot simulator screen, before moving to a 22,000-square-foot short-game area, which includes putting on an adjustable green. All told, there’s 250,000 square feet of playing area.
For the results from Tuesday’s matches, CLICK HERE.
About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com