Tiger Woods’ absence turns disastrous for TGL as 323,000 people turn their back on the 3rd week of the series

With TGL, it appears to be Tiger Woods' world. The golfer made his debut last week on the venture created by himself and Rory McIlroy. It drove the ratings, which were fairly high for the debut week on January 7, even higher. The following week, when Woods wasn't competing, the ratings plummeted.

The league drew 919,000 viewers for the debut, which featured Bay Area Golf Club beating New York Golf Club comfortably. In Week 2, which saw Woods compete and his son Charlie in the audience, more than one million viewers tuned in.

Unfortunately, the growth did not continue from there. There was a 32 percent drop in Week 3, which saw New York losing for a second time. This time, Atlanta Drive GC beat them by four.

The third week could only muster up 682,000 viewers despite featuring PGA Tour stars like Rickie Fowler, Patrick Cantlay, Justin Thomas, Matt Fitzpatrick, and Billy Horschel.

Next week, Woods will be back in action, which might spark an uptick in viewers again. He will face off with Rory McIlroy's team. It's the first matchup between the two creators of the league on the schedule, which adds a level of intrigue that hasn't been there before.

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TGL's big rule change might not make it to the PGA Tour

Pace of play on the PGA Tour has been the talk of golf for a very long time. Recently, a single round took over five hours to complete, thus bringing the conversation back to the forefront once more.

Justin Thomas on TGL (Imagn)

TGL has no such problem. There's a shot clock, and some have said the Tour needs to take that rule and implement it themselves. Justin Thomas, who plays on both, believes it's not that simple.

He said via Golf.com:

“It’s tough. Look, this is my 10th year on Tour. I’ve been on the PAC a lot of years. We’ve talked about pace of play all 10 years."

He continued:

“You have to make such drastic changes for it to be noticeable. Pretty much a lot of the conversations end the same way; it’s like, what are we trying to accomplish here? Are rounds going to be 12 minutes faster? Are they going to be 20 minutes faster? It’s hard to realistically make a big enough difference where people are like, wow, this is great. Rounds are only three hours now or three and a half hours instead of five. You know what I mean? It’s really hard to make that big of a change.”

Thomas believes that the changes the Tour could make by emulating TGL will be minuscule.