Tiger Woods becomes first player in TGL history to be punished for breaking strict rule

By JAKE FENNER

It only took until the fourth match of the inaugural TGL season for a player to violate one of the out-of-the-box rules that the golf-sim league brings to the table. Turns out, it was one of the founders of the league that did it.

On the tenth hole in the Monday night match between Jupiter Links GC and Boston Common GC, Jupiter’s Tiger Woods was lining up his eight-foot putt on the high-tech green at the SoFi Center.

But Woods took too long and became the first player in the league’s brief history to commit a shot-clock violation.

Woods was about to pull the putter back when his allotted 40 seconds expired and the buzzer sounded, handing the 15-time major winner an automatic one-stroke penalty, and thus costing him a chance of matching the birdie of Boston’s Rory McIlroy.

Though the event at the purpose-built 1,500-seat indoor arena was mostly fun and games, Woods looked grim walking off the green, seemingly muttering just a single inaudible word.

Tiger Woods took too long on a putt, becoming the first golfer in TGL with a shot clock violation

Woods’ Jupiter Links GC brushed it off and managed to beat Rory McIlroy’s Boston Common

But Woods, as so often, had the last laugh over the team of McIlroy, Adam Scott, and Keegan Bradley.

He made amends three holes later by sinking a 7-foot putt to halve the 13th hole, and he and Jupiter teammates Kevin Kisner and Tom Kim prevailed over Boston in a sudden-death pitch-off after the teams had finished the regulation 15 holes tied at 3-3.

Kim got his pitch further than Bradley and Kisner managed to get closer than Scott to clinch the win.

It’s Jupiter’s first win of the season – having previously been handily defeated by Los Angeles GC 12-1 back on January 14. Boston, meanwhile, was playing in its first TGL match of the season. 

The TGL was jointly founded by Woods and McIlroy with TV sports executive Mike McCarley, and Monday was the first time the two superstars appeared together.

:
Tiger Woods becomes first player in TGL history to be punished for breaking strict rule

***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk