Rory McIlroy’s former agent Chubby Chandler has had his say on the TGL – and he’s not impressed by what he has seen so far.
The tech-infused contest, which was co-founded by McIlroy and 15-time Major winner Tiger Woods, only began earlier in the month, but Chandler already has strong opinions on it.
Speaking to Prime Casino, Chandler claimed the TGL has only been launched to reward PGA Tour players who resisted the lure of LIV Golf.
He said: “I can’t believe it. I actually made a plan to be awake at 2am to watch that. I was completely open-minded. I had no idea whether I was going to really like it or really hate it and I think the public have missed the point of what it is. And the point of what it is is paying 20 top guys instead of f****** LIV Golf. That’s what it is.
"However they dress it up, they’re giving all these top players the money because they’ve not gone to LIV. It’s all about putting cash in their pockets."
Chandler is also uninspired by the roster - which comprises 24 PGA Tour players, including McIlroy and Woods - and explained it shows the TGL is repeating mistakes made by LIV Golf.
He added: “The team event at LIV should have had women in it, then it would have looked like a team event, but it never looked like a team event because they just had four players playing an individual tournament and added the scores together.
“I think TGL have probably missed the same thing, but that’s why it is money for the boys. Why wouldn’t you have Charley Hull, otherwise? Charley Hull would be more entertaining than all the other players on Tuesday night, so long as they made it not a non-smoking area. She would have been brilliant on it.”
Chandler then went further, suggesting the short game layout is flawed, although he thinks it’ll take the rest of the season to fully assess its merits.
He added: “The chipping and putting was what it was. It was what it looked like. When you’re on an artificial green, that’s what happens. They can’t make it real enough. Are you suddenly going to get a different set of players who are better at simulator golf? No. The same basic talent needed to play a simulator is the same as the talent to play real golf.
“The bunkers, they’re all flat. Some of it you look at and you are left questioning why it is like that. Anyway, time will tell. It’ll be very interesting in 10 weeks time or whatever it is.”
Chander wasn’t even impressed by the fact the players were mic’d up, and claimed that they can only entertain in one way – via their on-course ability. He said: “At the end of the day, they’ve put this thing together to show another side of the players, but that side is not very interesting.
“They’re talking about them being entertainers, and they are magnificent entertainers - but how do they entertain us? They hit golf shots better than you or I or a lot of other people. That’s the way they entertain us. They don’t entertain us by cracking jokes.
“For me, it didn’t hit the mark. Obviously, I’m in a different position to most people because I’ve seen a lot of stuff from the other side but I’m not sure it needed everything like that. If you look back at the tapes of it, the crowd are looking bewildered because they don’t know what was going on.”
