Tiger and Team Jupiter Links fall to Morikawa, Team LA in TGL

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. – Tiger Woods was the sixth and final player to come out of the tunnel and onto the playing field for his TGL debut Tuesday night.

No one announced his name. It wasn’t necessary.

“Eye of the Tiger” from Survivor blared and that was more than enough of an introduction for perhaps golf’s greatest player. It’s not like anyone inside Palm Beach State College’s SoFi Center didn’t know who Woods was, and most probably even knew how he, Rory McIlroy and others spent years trying to bring that notion to fruition indoor golf on television.

“It’s now a reality,” Woods said.

Week two of TGL took place on Tuesday evening – Woods joined Kevin Kisner and Max Homa of Jupiter Links Golf Club to take on the Los Angeles Golf Club of Justin Rose, Collin Morikawa and Sahith Theegala.

The final score: Los Angeles 12, Jupiter 1 in the 15-hole, made-for-TV team match featuring nine holes of alternate-shot triple play, followed by six holes of singles play – two holes for each player of each team. Woods always smiled, even with a lopsided score. The format is such that he only took 20 shots during the match, which lasted just over 2 hours.

Woods’ team quickly found themselves on the wrong side of the scoreboard, losing 5-0. It could have been worse if Woods hadn’t made an 8-footer for par to help his team secure a tie on the fifth hole. That putt came one hole after Woods slid 7 feet wide to the left.

“It’s about time, Tiger,” tennis legend Serena Williams said on the ESPN broadcast. Williams is a longtime friend of Woods, so she found herself rooting for him — and she’s part of the Los Angeles Golf Club ownership group, so she simultaneously found herself rooting against him.

There were some vintage Woods moments, like watching shots he loved while the super-high-tech video boards narrated where the ball would have gone on the outside. There were also some frustrating ones; he shook his head after hitting a 101-yard wedge into the water on the second hole of the 15-hole match – while his son Charlie, sitting in one of the arena seats overlooking the course, couldn’t stop laughing.

Williams sat in the Los Angeles dressing room, just to the right of the players’ starting areas, enjoying the spectacle of the introductions, the light and smoke shows and the booming music.

“It’s so wild,” Williams said. “It’s something you see a little bit in tennis. We see it all the time in basketball, right? We don’t really see it in golf. In fact, we never see it that in golf. It’s so good to see their personalities and see them shine as golfers… It’s so cool to see a new side.