Presumably, a few of you heard that emergency alert siren that suddenly wailed from your mobile the other night.
Given the stark, startling nature of the warning, you’re probably still trying to pack your body back into your skin after it leaped out of it in a shrieking, hysterical fankle.
What a bloomin’ gliff I got. It was the most dramatic message I’ve received on my phone since a taxi firm informed me to, “look out for a white Skoda Octavia, registration SH19 TJX”. Oooh, the anticipation. As you can tell, I live a fairly uneventful existence.
With the deadline for the self-assessment tax return looming this week, I genuinely thought the aforementioned emergency blast was sent by HMRC as part of its ongoing campaign of harassment to get folk to fill the thing in.
Emails, text messages, leaflet drops by a squadron of droning B-52s? Come Friday, I wouldn’t be surprised if Hector the Inspector, that old, animated advertising figurehead of the Inland Revenue, kicks my front door down and starts jabbing me with a rolled-up copy of the SA100 form.
Anyway, let’s crack on with the golf. If you thought getting a terrifying warning signal through your mobile was high-tech, then what have you made of the brave new world that is Tomorrow’s Golf League (TGL)?
We are now three weeks into Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s tech-infused, made-for-TV indoor simulator league and, to be honest, I’ve kind of lost interest already.
Yes, I know I wrote a column recently saying how TGL was admirably fresh and how it ticked a lot of boxes in this digital age. But I also asked whether it would tickle the fancy? And, for this correspondent at least, it hasn’t really brushed anything close to my fancy.
But I’m an increasingly decrepit 48-year-old who thinks getting a text message about the impending arrival of a taxi is an exemplar of innovation. I’m not really the young, switched-on, tech-titillated demographic TGL is reaching out to.
Then again? According to figures from the US, your correspondent would be one of the more youthful viewers tuning in. The average age for a TGL broadcast is 51, some 14 years younger than the average for regular PGA Tour broadcasts.
The early figures, then, show that it has at least shaved a few years off that average. But it also shows golf’s core audience, which is dwindling for main tour events anyway, ain’t that interested.
TGL is trying to chase the holy grail of a new market in a game with a traditional viewership that remains, stubbornly and unsurprisingly, of a certain vintage.
Gen Z is the market golf craves. The Old F generation, as one colleague put it, is still where it’s at, though.
It’ll be weeks, months, even years before we see the full impact of simulator golf on the viewer. If TGL lasts that long, of course.
According to more TV figures, the audience for last week’s two-hour prime time broadcast was down by 32 per cent on the previous week, when Tiger Woods was playing.
That was always going to be one of the obvious issues for TGL. On the weeks when Woods or McIlroy are not involved – they go head-to-head tonight so expect a spike - is there enough in the other players to lure folk in once the initial curiosity factor wears off? Probably not.
When golf and golfers go out of the comfort zone – and that’s not necessarily a bad thing – it often looks awkward, contrived and desperate.
Amid the razzmatazz of flashing lights, music and fireworks, I watched Rickie Fowler being introduced by a giddy announcer, like a boxer being welcomed into a ring, and he ambled forward with all the gusto of a mourner at a funeral being beckoned towards the graveside to take one of the coffin cords.
Billy Horschel then burst into a dance routine that resembled the excruciating moves of a slightly tipsy and emboldened uncle at his nephew’s 18th birthday party. It was all slightly cringey.
Hyperbole and giddy proclamations, meanwhile, remain par for the course as far as TGL is concerned. Here, for instance, is what Ludvig Aberg, the world No 6, said about it the other week.
“I think this is the future, this is where the game’s going to head, and I love it,” cooed the Swede.
Now, I’ll just give you a minute to wipe away the tea that you’ve just spluttered all over the carpet after reading that.
If the future of this great game is indoors, and on a simulator, then the next emergency siren I want to hear blaring from my phone is the one signalling the end of the world.
I’m being typically flippant, of course. Last year, figures released by the R&A showed that over 42.7 million adults in its affiliated global markets were playing 18 and nine-hole courses, up 3 million on the previous year.
The auld game, despite the naysayers, is still booming. The idea, often championed in these fevered times, that something like TGL is desperately needed to save golf tends to be as wide of the mark as one of my shanked wedges.
The early days of TGL were always going to benefit from a sense of novelty. As for its longevity? Time, as always, will tell.
It’s time, meanwhile, to get that ruddy tax return done. Is that a siren I hear?
