TGL semi-final pairings all but decided with last league match still to go

Los Angeles Golf Club, The Bay GC, Atlanta Drive and New York GC clinched the top four spots to complete the TGL semi-final playoff lineup after the penultimate set of matches at the SoFi Centre on Monday, March 3. The results also eliminated the teams of event co-promoters Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy. Jupiter Links Golf Club and Boston Common Golf, respectively.

In the semi-finals, top seeds LAGC take on fourth-placed New York, and second seeds The Bay GC play likely third seeds Atlanta Drive on March 17 and 18 at the purpose-built arena-style venue on Palm Beach Gardens, with the two winners going through to the best-of-three finale scheduled for March 24 and 25.

The final league match remains to be played between Atlanta Drive and Jupiter Links who are fifth with the outcome unlikely to affect the standings as JLGC are out of contention. Atlanta Drive have a theoretical opportunity to take second place but needs an astronomical positive outcome on Tuesday to change the standings as they currently are.

LAGC finished atop the league unbeaten with nine points from their five round-robin matches with The Bay taking second place on eight points with a 5-4-1 record in terms of matches played, wins and losses. Atlanta Drive are on six points from four matches while New York have completed their set of league engagements with five points from their five outings.

On Monday, LAGC’s Tommy Fleetwood, Sahith Theegala and Collin Morikawa earned a 5-3 win over The Bay to seal top spot on the table which means the losing side will almost certainly be the no. 2 seeds, barring a massive swing in holes won for Atlanta on Tuesday against Jupiter Links. It was a second successive comeback result for Los Angeles after earlier beating New York in another close encounter.

“I think one thing that surprised me about this whole experience is how much I care and how much I want to win,” The Bay's Shane Lowry said on tglgolf.com. “Obviously it's something new. We didn't know what to expect. I'm pretty pissed off that we lost.”

For their part, Atlanta eased past bottom-placed Boston last week to clinch a playoff berth and will need a plus 11-hole win differential over Jupiter while the most number of holes won in a single match so far this season is nine. On Tuesday, Nick Dunlap will make his debut for Atlanta on a one-match contract, playing alongside Lucas Glover and Billy Horschel.

In essence, Woods and McIlroy will watch the playoffs from the sidelines with Jupiter Links and Boston Common taking the two bottom spots on the league table. Boston still had a chance of finishing fourth but Monday’s 10-6 result in favour of NYGC sealed their league-trailing sixth place.

Despite a late charge during which they even led against New York, Boston finished the league stage winless with their Australian star Adam Scott summing up their closing encounter. “Anytime you have a loss, it's disappointing. I felt like we were clawing back and had the momentum, but again, we're playing against great players, and they hit some great shots and came up with it when they needed it. I felt like we were a little unlucky overall on the season. I felt like we played better than our results. But that's kind of the match play game."

Added New York’s Schauffele, who will turn out in the playoffs after having to sit out the first four league matches, “It's awesome. I missed being out, and just sitting at home, you sort of appreciate a lot of things when you're sort of sidelined. It got some juices flowing.”