Do you use an alarm clock? To tell you the truth, I don’t really need one. I tend to wake up each morning to the sound of my own despairing screams.
These bellows and bawls can be particularly bad first thing on a Monday, when I’m struggling for ideas and inspiration for the weekly column. Honest to goodness, the tortured howls and wails can sound like a werewolf trying to digest an angle grinder.
Anyway, on those occasions when I do set an alarm on my phone, I’ve discovered that said piece of equipment performs a spectacularly irritating pre-emptive strike. You may be familiar with it?
Say, for example, the alarm is set for 7am. The phone will buzz an eye-opening notification at 6:45am stating that ‘the 7am alarm will ring soon’.
Do we really need such advanced guidance? I mean, it’s a humdrum wake-up call not the Four Minute Warning about an imminent nuclear bloomin’ attack.
This is the thing about smart Alec technology, you see. It thinks it’s doing you a favour, like an overly efficient chambermaid trying to refill the complimentary soaps in your hotel room while you’re still doddering around in an unwieldy, bleary-eyed state of flustered undress. Now, there’s a vision that’s cause for, well, alarm.
In the world of golf, meanwhile, it’s all systems go for the Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy-led TGL, an all-singing, all-dancing, made-for-television, indoor league that will be so high-tech, it would make the inner workings of NASA look about as cutting edge as the ceramic chamber pot.
Then again? This whole innovative initiative was supposed to start a year ago but TGL’s base – the futuristic SoFi Centre in Florida – suffered a power failure which caused its massive, air-supported dome roof to deflate. Ah, the wonders of technology.
Presumably, they’ve been feverishly stamping away at the foot pumps for the last few months because the movers and shakers of TGL announced the other day that they are ready for a January launch.
With Woods and McIlroy at its vanguard, TGL will feature six teams made up of 24 of the PGA Tour’s top players. They will compete in a two-month schedule of matches and will thrash away into a massive simulator screen measuring 64ft x 46ft. Even this hapless correspondent would have a half decent chance of hitting that.
Once inside 50 yards, they will switch from the simulator to hitting into live-action greens. As for tickets? Well, they’ll start at $160.
That, remember, is to watch a few men thump some balls into a screen for two hours of prime-time crash, bang, wallop. I’m sure it will tickle a few fancies. Maybe not mine, mind you. Or yours, for that matter.
TGL at least has Woods involved. As we all know, for any venture like this to get off the ground and have some kind of long-term sustainability, it still needs old Tiger.
He remains golf’s biggest driver on the tele despite the fact he hardly plays, he’s creeping towards 50 and his body is about as structurally sound as the aforementioned SoFi Centre during a power outage.
Woods, in many ways, is golf’s blessing and its curse. He still brings eyeballs and exposure to the sport like nothing else. But he overshadows everything else.
In the weeks when he isn’t playing in TGL – he’s not actually involved in the first week – will people care enough to tune in? Will people, in fact, embrace simulator golf? Will they invest themselves in the team aspect of the whole thing? And have the players themselves, who will be mic’d up, got enough oomph about them to keep folk engaged?
Let’s face it, whenever these made-for-TV occasions bang on about getting up close and personal with the players and their conversations, it all ends up sounding decidedly forced, strained and awkward.
As for eavesdropping on banter? Well, Woods’ idea of ‘banter’ was handing Justin Thomas a tampon as they walked down the fairway at an event last year. Golfers, eh? They’re a right hoot.
TGL’s vision is admirable in an age when golf continues to try to capture the hearts and minds of a different audience that demands instant gratification and easily digestible sporting fare.
While eager to reach out to existing fans, TGL is about spreading golf’s net and tapping into new markets. Simulator golf, after all, is a huge growth area. In the US, for instance, the use of such tech-infused facilities rose by 73 per cent in the last year according to some number-crunchers
After an aborted start, then, TGL is getting ready for take-off. It will be a new addition to a professional scene that, in a lot of ways, is operating against a backdrop of fan apathy brought on by the prolonged stalemate in the battle involving the established tours and the breakaway LIV Series.
LIV’s big play, of course, has been the team element. But if there is an audience hungry for more team golf, then LIV probably would’ve drawn greater numbers to its product, even allowing for the all the unsavoury palavers and stooshies that came with its emergence.
Will a few players clattering some balls into a big screen under a dome during the winter months of TGL grab more attention? Time will tell. By the way, it all starts on January 7. Should I set an alarm?
