1/13/25
The beginning of the 2025 golf season has been exciting and created lots of headlines early in the year. Here is a look at what’s been going on lately, from the launch of the TGL, the PGA Tour’s Opening Drive, LIV Golf’s schedule, and more, plus, what’s to come in golf.
Sony Open Produces Another Great Finish
While the NFL Playoffs were rolling along yesterday, the Sony Open produced a playoff finish for the third time in the last four years. The leaders for the majority of the day were J.J. Spaun and Stephen Jaeger, but on the 16th hole, Stephan Jaeger bogeyed the hole to drop to 15-under, and on the 17th hole, J.J. Spain bogeyed to also drop to 15-under. Nico Echevarria and Nick Taylor were already in the clubhouse at 16-under, after Echevarria birdied 16 and 18 while Taylor chipped in for eagle on the 72nd hole to set the clubhouse lead. Spaun and Jaeger couldn’t birdie the par-5, 18th hole to join Taylor and Echevarria in the playoff, meaning it would be a dual for the finish.
In the playoff, the players went back to the 18th tee to play the par five again, and both Echevarria and Taylor birdied to send them back up to the 18th tee, where they’d give it a go again. Nick Taylor left his second shot short but pitched his third to a few feet from the hole to set himself up with a short birdie putt. After Echevarria missed his birdie effort, Taylor drained his birdie to claim the Sony Open on the second playoff hole. The Canadian and former Washington Huskies athlete Nick Taylor has won in a playoff for the third consecutive year.
It’s another nice win for Nick Taylor, who’s putting together a solid PGA Tour career. Nico Echevarria is continuing his nice play from the fall into the early portion of the year as he looks to rack up another victory. The PGA Tour heads to The American Express this week in Palm Springs, California, where Nick Dunlap won as an amateur last year at 29-under by a shot over Christiaan Bezuidenhout. Justin Thomas, Patrick Cantlay, Tony Finau, Will Zalatoris, and Billy Horschel headline a pretty good field in California this week.
TGL Opens Up To A Largely Positive Response
The TGL premiered last week on ESPN, and for the most part, there were positive reviews. The TGL is an indoor screen golf league that Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy created. There are six teams, consisting of four players on each team, with three players competing in each match. The matches are 15 holes, and for the majority of the shots, they hit into a giant screen, with chips and putts being played out on a large, rotating green. Each hole is worth a point, and if the teams tie on the hole, there is no point awarded. Winning the match is simple, get more points than the other team. If there is a tie after regulation, overtime will determine the winner, with a closest to the pin competition. The team who successfully hits two shots closer than the other in the penalty shootout format, wins overtime, and the match.
ESPN and ESPN+ are broadcasting every match as the season, which goes through Tuesday, March 4th, the final match of the regular season. The playoffs are a single-elimination semifinal round and a best-of-three championship series. The semis will take place on March 17th and 18th with the Championship Series taking place on March 24th and 25th.
The shot clock is the biggest difference from TGL to traditional golf, other than hitting golf balls into a giant screen. Players have 40 seconds to hit their shot. Otherwise, they are penalized. This speeds up the game and pace of play, which has consistently been an issue in golf. Fans were pleased with how fast the shots were being hit, and there wasn’t too much waiting around for the next shot. There are timeouts in TGL, which each side having two timeouts to use throughout the match.
The players are all mic’d up, so you hear the banter back and forth from the opposing teams, as well as some strategizing within the teams. There were about 1,500 fans that packed SoFi Center in Florida, where TGL is held, and there were even some boo’s that reigned down on the players for poorly hit shots.
I need to see more TGL matches before I formulate an opinion of TGL as a whole. There seems to be a lot of promise with the idea of it, but there are some things to iron out in the upcoming weeks to improve the product. For example, when they got to the singles portion of the match, which is the final six holes, the match seemed to slow down. That felt more of a negative, even though it effectively was a more traditional match-play format that we’re used to seeing at the Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup. What might benefit the TGL is the uniqueness of having three players on the same team, each hitting shots on a hole, which we see nowhere else in golf. Singles matches are something we see not weekly but a few times a year in golf, and I would like to see something new. It also didn’t help that the match wasn’t close, and the singles portion didn’t matter at that point. Add some drama and a close match, maybe singles will be a smash hit, but on night one, it was a double bogey.
Many viewers were commenting positively on the pace of play during the alternate shot portion of the match, which is the first nine holes. I’d have to agree with those fans, it was quick, but not too fast and overwhelming. Things were happening all the time, but not too much to where you felt like you were missing out on something. You could hear players chatting and breaking down what went right or wrong while enjoying the shots taking place. TGL might thrive with the alternate shot, and there is strategy involved with all of the players having different distances and strengths.
TGL’s next match will be tomorrow afternoon at 4 PM on ESPN, with Tiger Woods’s Jupiter Links GC taking on Collin Morikawa’s Los Angeles GC. Anytime Tiger is on television swinging a golf club is a positive, so there should be big ratings, good trash-talking, and maybe a close match.
Here is the TGL Schedule for 2025.
LIV Golf 2025 Schedule Releases
LIV Golf recently released its 2025 schedule for their upcoming season. There were some changes made to the 2025 season, with the LIV Team Championship heading to Michigan from August 22nd through the 24th, the LIV Individual Championship heading to Indianapolis the week before, from August 15th through the 17th, the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club outside of Washington D.C., which hosted the Solheim Cup last fall and multiple Presidents Cups, among other changes.
The first LIV Golf Tournament will take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, at the Riyadh Golf Club from February 6th to the 8th before heading to Adelaide, Australia, again the following week. LIV Adelaide has been a smash-hit success, garnering sellout crowds that bring a raucous and enthusiastic atmosphere to the event, showcased at the par-3 12th hole, known as “The Watering Hole.” LIV will also go to Korea for the first time, playing at Jack Nicklaus Golf Club, which hosted the 2015 President’s Cup, and Mexico City, where Mexico’s Carlos Ortiz and Abraham Ancer should be crowd favorites all weekend long.
Ripper GC won the team championship in 2024, consisting of an all-Aussie squad of Cam Smith, Marc Leishman, Matt Jones, and Lucas Herbert. Two-time major champion Jon Rahm from Legion XIII won the individual title in his first year on LIV.
LIV Golf hasn’t returned to the PNW since they made their United States debut with LIV Portland at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club in 2022.
Here is the full 2025 LIV Golf Schedule.
Washington Golf’s Winter Series Tournaments
Washington Golf’s Winter Series teed off their first tournament of the year, which was a 2-Person Shamble at Gold Mountain Golf Club (Olympic) in Bremerton. The next tournament is an Individual Stableford at The Home Course in DuPont on January 24th.
All of the events in the Winter Series are open to male and female amateur golfers who are in good standing of a WA Golf member club and who have an active GHIN that doesn’t exceed 54.0. The Winter Series consists of seven tournaments, two individual events, and five 2-Person events.
Click here for the Winter Series Schedule.
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