Phew.

That was something, right?

However you felt about TGL’s debut game Tuesday night at the swank SoFi Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, you probably had…Thoughts.

You may have rolled your eyes as you watched the lengthy, WWE-level pre-match introductions (“Make some noise for Matt Fitz – PAAAA trick!!!”), which were followed by dad-bodded golfers humbly Polos strolled into the arena in crisp white pants.

Or perhaps you were impressed by the tens of millions of dollars worth of TGL technology that finally found some competitive proponents: the six-story-tall simulator screen; the wondrous rotating green with nearly 600 hydraulic cylinders beneath its surface; the jumbo touchscreen yardage “book” that allows teammates to strategize on hitting and club selection.

You may have cringed at the Lambo-fast downhill putts that seemed more suited to mini golf than the professional version. Or maybe you’ve dug the variety of fancy hole designs – Serpent! Oh slide! Choose your loot! – this was a far cry from anything you’ll find at TPC Craig Ranch.

Maybe DJ Khaled’s endlessly long cameo could have been dispensed with. Or maybe you appreciated ESPN’s repeated cuts to team owners looking down on their subjects like wealthy Romans staring at gladiators in the Colosseum.

Maybe you’re convinced that TGL is everything that’s wrong with professional golf in 2024. Or perhaps this brave new league fills you with hope and excitement for what is possible in the evolution of the so-called old game.

But let’s put all that aside for a brief moment to celebrate what seems to be the only thing everyone Players, ticket holders, spectators, reporters, tweeters, dog, cat and goldfish united behind us: TGL’s gloriously fast pace of play. Keeping the game moving was important not only to captivate the audience, but also to squeeze a 15-hole game into a two-hour broadcast window, a mission that TGL fulfilled not only by promoting fast-paced play but also by promoting fast-paced play prescriptive It.

If you watched the broadcast, you probably noticed the rule: Players were given no more than 40 seconds to play a shot, a number derived from, but also routinely used in, the USGA’s game speed recommendation for traditional golf is ignored in the upper echelons of professional golf, primarily because slow play is not strictly monitored.

At TGL, however, “Keep it Moving or Else” is a commandment set in stone. The details are right there in the official rules, which state: “Each player has 40 seconds to hit his shot, otherwise his team will receive a shot clock violation and a one-shot penalty.”

Enforcing the time rules falls to TGL’s referee and a man who knows a thing or two about shot clocks: former NBA referee Derrick Stafford. It also has some help in the form of two obvious digital timers mounted on either side of the sim screen. Should the players need it another As a reminder of their short time, they receive it when the clock reaches the 15-second mark in the form of a heartbeat sound that pulsates through the arena.

Kitschy? Hell no. It’s brilliant. As one player left the tee, the next player was already running quickly toward the tee with the distance calculated and the club in hand. It was golf meets F1, and golf fans on social media loved it. Playing indoors (no wind!) and away from perfect lies certainly makes club selection easier and quicker, but still in some places you could sense that the guys would have liked to have taken a few more moments to assess their shots, esp on the greens. Professional golfers like to be in control everything. They move at their own pace and only pull the trigger when they are fully committed. The shot clock can and will disrupt this process – at least for some players.

However, if you take the TGL players from opening night at their word, none of them fit that description. Representing the Bay GC were Shane Lowry, Wyndham Clark and Ludvig Åberg, who defeated their opponents, Xander Schauffele, Rickie Fowler and Matt Fitzpatrick from New York GC, 9:2. When asked about the shot clock afterward, every player praised it, and Fitzpatrick even went so far as to say, “I wish that was (in) real golf.”

Lowry admitted that the clock took some getting used to during his practice on Monday — “I couldn’t believe how fast everything was going,” he said — but added that other teams are more likely to struggle with the time pressure than his team.

“Our team won’t have any problems with that,” he said. “We are three of the faster players out there.”

In fact, at no point on Tuesday did either team appear to be stressed by their 40-second limit. Conversely, they seemed to pick up the pace and perhaps even felt liberated as a result.

Towards the end of their post-game press conference, the New York team was asked if there was a TGL rule that might make sense to apply to traditional golf.

Fitzpatrick and Fowler took about half a second before they uttered the same two-word answer in harmony: “Shot Clock.”

But Fitzpatrick wasn’t done yet.

He leaned back into his microphone and said, “No question.”

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