It didn’t take long for world-class golf pros Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy to support the concept and technology behind TMRW Sports’ TGL.
The two longtime golfers, sports industry pioneers and ambassadors have long been advocates for how technology can make golf more accessible and exciting.
So, when Founder and CEO Mike McCarley pitched them an idea of a technology-infused golf league that marries a data-rich, virtual course with a broadcast component that sends golf into prime time they were immediately on board.
“They both understood it and understood the opportunity from the very first time they heard about it,” Joey Brander, a member of the founding team and its Vice President, Corporate Development, said at a technology conference in Orlando last week. “Both of them were on board from Day 1.”
Brander took the stage at Orlando’s MetaCenter Global Week alongside TMRW Sports’ Chief Technology Officer Andrew Macaulay to dive deep into TGL’s upcoming launch.
In a chat with Jason Siegel of the Greater Orlando Sports Commission, Brander and Macaulay shared the latest.
TMRW SPORTS: A NEW TYPE OF LEAGUE
TGL presented by SoFi will be played in a new, technology-laden sports venue, SoFi Center, on the campus of Palm Beach State College in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.
The facility’s tech stage has the potential to permanently shift the landscape of in-person sporting events.
TGL’s giant screen powered by Full Swing technology measuring 64 feet high by 46 feet across, roughly 20 times the size of a standard simulator screen. Players will hit from real grass tee boxes at both tee box/fairway, rough length, as well as real sand. And the venue’s revolutionary short game area is where technology takes a leap forward.
The area will be equipped with about 700 hydraulic jacks that allows the venue to simulate undulations on putting greens.
Computer controlled software allows venue operators to customize it exactly as they want it.
Then, as competitors in the venue complete a hole and move on to the next, actuators fire up to simulate the next green.
“It’s phenomenal,” Macaulay said. “We have been researching and developing for six to seven months with our synthetics. We have also come up with a proprietary layering technique.”
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