In Los Angeles GC’s 6-2 win over Boston Common three weeks ago, on Tuesday night, a strange moment left everyone puzzled. After Justin Rose and Collin Morikawa had made significant progress on the 582-yard, par-5 second hole, Tommy Fleetwood was set to hit a short-iron from 167 yards out. As the Englishman prepared to strike, his shot toward the super-sized TGL screen at SoFi Center seemed to disappear for a moment. The screen then showed the ball trickling along the ground, as though Fleetwood had topped it.

Confusion spread instantly. Fleetwood was confused. Rory McIlroy was confused. “What just happened?” McIlroy exclaimed. Morikawa joked that the ball had actually gone in the hole, while Rose quipped that Fleetwood had hit it “too flush.” Eventually, the screen displayed an “Invalid Reading” message, and Fleetwood was asked to hit it again.

More such instances like these have raised questions about the newly launched league, which initially received a lot of stardom. However, Andrew Macaulay, the Chief Technology Officer of TMRW Sports, defended the system. He said, “There’s a lot of tech out there, a lot of different kinds do things. Different tech does it in different ways. You have to step back to the brief of what we were trying to achieve. Which is that they can hit the ball from anywhere they place it in a really wide area of multiple different lies, including real sand, including real rough where the ball could be completely buried, and hardly seen if they get a really bad drop.”

He also added how the intention was to track the ball if it hit a really long way. It only makes it ‘super visual’ for the fans and the players to have the ball go a long way before hitting the screen. “I’m really confident in the technology,” he added. He did agree that the divot was an outlier, but everything else was pretty much alright. He has been monitoring every shot, and well, the screen mostly gives out the correct data, after calculating all the aspects.

However, the explanation failed to attain the trust of the golf community. 

The Golf Community lashes out on TGL 

While one of them directly pointed out the pros and cons of the league by commenting, “Biggest gripe I have with @TGL so far is the angle of the camera on full swings. Would be so much better if it was not 30 degrees to the right of every swing. Makes every swing look like a massive in-to-out hook. The biggest positives are easily the shot clock and trash talk! What say you @NoLayingUp ??” The others did not go as easy.

TGL was prepared for moments like this, with a clear rule in place to handle situations where the technology fails. According to the rulebook, “The referee or booth official shall have the ability to deem a shot during screenplay an ‘inaccurate computation’ at their discretion to maintain the integrity of the match and facilitate the competition.” The rule also gives officials the authority to call for a “re-hit” if necessary. Scenarios where this could happen include, but are not limited to, a shot not being captured. If the competition technology fails to track the ball, the referee or booth official can invoke a re-hit to ensure the game runs smoothly. However, the system failed to work out. Taking to this, one of them said, “Accuracy matters.”

Tiger Woods is already 49, and with so many surgeries and a life-threatening car accident, he is still playing golf. This is the main reason why his performance has not been the greatest. Taking to this, one of them even commented, “TGL is failing, similar to the PGAT because of Eldrick’s ego.”

While another, taking to Andrew Macaulay’s statement, simply commented, “Sure if you have all of the inputs, the math is the easy part. The flaw is in the ability of the machine to collect all the inputs and to do so accurately.”

Do you think TGL is set for a downfall as the league approaches its inaugural playoffs? Let us know in the comments section below!