TGL
Are TGL simulators accurate and why are players struggling in the bunkers? Rory McIlroy has answers

Rory McIlroy watches his shot during Week 4 of TGL.
Megan Briggs/TGL
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — Between personal observation and some internet rumblings about the quality of the technology employed by the new tech-driven indoor golf league he co-founded with Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy decided recently to put TGL’s simulator through his own test.
In preparation for his debut Monday night with the Boston Common Golf Club, McIlroy visited the SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., last Wednesday armed with two simulators and some curiosity about the technology that TGL employs. TGL uses 18 Full Swing radar devices combined with eight Top Tracer optical cameras to ensure that results accurately reflect the quality of the shots. He came away satisfied with the results.
“Yeah. So tech wise and numbers wise, look, I've had the same concerns, I guess, just from I hadn't obviously played a match,” McIlroy said Tuesday at Pebble Beach Golf Links, where he is preparing for his first PGA Tour event of the season at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. “I went in there on Wednesday, and I brought two other launch monitors with me. I brought my GCQuad, I brought my TrackMan. Obviously, hitting balls into the screen and every number was virtually identical. That put my concerns to bed, which was really good. I hit balls in there for 90 minutes.”
The information-gathering mission didn’t translate to success as he and teammates Keegan Bradley and Adam Scott lost to Woods’ Jupiter Links team in overtime.
TGL played for the first time on Monday night instead of Tuesday, and it allowed McIlroy, the No. 3 player in the world, time to get a decent night’s sleep—he lives five minutes from the SoFi Center—and then fly to the west coast for the $20 million signature event.
While McIlroy allowed that getting used to the simulator is going to take time for all players, it appears that executing shots from the greenside bunker is presenting it own challenges. TGL uses a type of granulated quartz called SP 55, which is a very fine sand that also fills the bunkers at Augusta National Golf Club. Its small granules are considered optimal for TGL because it doesn’t sit on the surface of the synthetic putting green after being blasted out. Apparently, conditions inside the arena are contributing to the difficulty, illustrated by Tom Kim’s struggles during Monday’s match when he left his first recovery attempt in the bunker on the final hole of regulation.
McIlroy explained the issue.
“In the arena as the night goes on and, say, the humidity drops in there, they have to water the sand quite a lot to keep the moisture in it to keep it … they only get to water it before the game is played, but once we get in there, it starts to dry up,” he said. “So the bunker shot I hit last night, yeah, it felt like my club was going through flour instead of going through sand.”
Just four weeks into its inaugural season, TGL finally offered a tight match. McIlroy said that there were bound to be some growing pains.
“Look, these are all the things that you learn on the fly. This is a startup; it's four weeks old,” he said. “Yeah, we've had time to prepare and we've done everything we can, but it's a learning process as we go along. I think each and every week it's got a little better. I obviously think last night was the best one so far. Hopefully, we just keep improving as we go on.”