While the first season of TGL may have been in the books for a little while now, there was a significant update on the future of the league this week with Motor City Golf Club confirmed as the newest team set to be added.
The debut season of TGL seemed to be a real success. While some golf fans will, understandably, never take to the format, the league seemed to do a great job of offering an alternative.
There were some fantastic moments in the first season – many of which involved Kevin Kisner in one way or another. And it will be exciting to see what the league could develop into in the coming years.
It has now been confirmed that the league will expand in 2027, with Motor City Golf Club set to make their debut.
Motor City Golf Club urged to sign six-time PGA Tour winner ahead of TGL debut
It is not yet clear which players will be involved with the team from Detroit. Obviously, 18 months is an incredibly long time in the game of golf, particularly in this era when fans are waiting to see if the PGA Tour and LIV Golf will come back together at some stage.
But speaking on the Golf Channel Podcast, Rex Hoggard suggested that there is one obvious name to be the first signing for the newest franchise in TGL.
“There was some sort of tie on a lot of these teams, but I think that’s probably faded. If you’re on the LA team, they probably wanted you to at least be from California, Collin Morikawa for example, or whatever the case may be. Certainly, the Jupiter team, no-one has ties to Jupiter, everyone just seems to live there. This one is going to be a little bit tough, so I’m not going to try to play the cute game of putting someone that’s from Detroit because there’s no-one there. I think it’s pretty clear cut the players who you want to join the league at this point. So it would be Scottie Scheffler, it would be Jordan Spieth, it would be a lot of guys that live in Dallas,” he said.
“One of the players that stood out and I think you and I talked about it, he was an alternate, he was an add-in late in the season, Tony Finau, who was not a member of the league but certainly, he was involved in the league. And it was fun to watch him play. We all know Tony’s got personality, we all know that he has game. So I’d probably start the team with him and then work my way backwards.”
How Tony Finau reacted after making his TGL debut earlier this year
As Hoggard notes, Finau did make an appearance in TGL, coming in for Los Angeles Golf Club in their clash with New York. And it appeared that the experience really got to the 35-year-old.
“It was so much fun. I really couldn’t have had more fun. We were playing fine in the beginning, even though we were in a deep hole. They made some huge putts. I think they made more consecutive feet of putts — it’s kind of the record out here on TGL. We knew we just kind of had to be patient. But we started to run out of holes at the end, but we all stepped up to the plate when it was our turn to get a point,” he said.
“Sahith led us off by getting the first point. We were able to throw the hammer and I was able to hit a good shot and make a good putt, and then Collin tied it up, and it was fair game after that.
“So fun to be a part of matches like this. Momentum is a crazy thing in sports, and happy we ended up on top.”
Finau will have had his reasons for initially turning down the opportunity to play in TGL. He was dealing with a knee injury towards the end of 2024 and he may have been wary of adding to his workload ahead of the new season.
As mentioned, so much could change by the time Motor City Golf Club tee it up for the first time. But signing Finau would clearly be a very smart move.
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