Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s Tomorrow Golf League (TGL) entered its final phase in the most unexpected way possible. After the two semifinal matches, the top two teams from the regular season were swept and are already thinking about next season.
New York Golf Club defeated top-seeded Los Angeles Golf Club in the semifinals, while Atlanta Drive Golf Club did the same to the second-seeded Bay Golf Club. Thus, New York and Atlanta will meet in the grand finale of the TGL’s inaugural season.
The New Yorkers had to work hard to defeat the Angelenos in the first semifinal. The Big Apple team won both the threesomes and singles, with Rickie Fowler playing the role of the hero, sinking a 16-foot putt on the ninth hole to keep his team in the lead.
The opposite was true for Collin Morikawa and Tommy Fleetwood, who both missed crucial short putts for Los Angeles, culminating in a 6-4 loss.
Fowler represented New York alongside Xander Schauffele and Cameron Young. Morikawa and Fleetwood defended the Los Angeles colors with Sahith Theegala.
“New York played great, and I think we had our chances,” Morikawa said afterward. “I didn’t play great. I take responsibility on that. You have to make putts in this format, and in these matches you have to make putts.”
“You’ve got to hit some decent shots, but it comes down to making putts, and we weren’t getting the ball in the first. That matters a lot.”
On Tuesday night, Atlanta easily defeated The Bay, who were playing without their main star, Wyndham Clark, who was out with an injury. His replacement, Min Woo Lee, did not have the same level of play that he had shown in the first two rounds of The PLAYERS Championship, missing two short putts in the triples match that were crucial to the team’s outcome.
The San Francisco team lost the triples match, 4-2, and the singles, 5-1, in a match that was never close. The lopsided final score (9-3) will undoubtedly be a confidence booster for Atlanta heading into the finals.
Atlanta had Justin Thomas, Patrick Cantlay and Billy Horschel on its roster, while Min Woo Lee played for San Francisco along with Shane Lowry and Ludvig Aberg.
“Obviously it’s the playoffs, so a little bit different,” Aberg said after the match. “Ultimately disappointed with the outcome today. Atlanta I thought played good, but I felt like we could have been a little bit better today in general.”
“But overall it’s been really cool to spend a couple of nights here throughout these last couple of months and get to know these guys a little bit better. We’ve had some cool moments, but today was not one of them.”
The finals between New York and Atlanta will be played in a best-of-three series on March 24th and 25th.
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