Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy pick former PGA Tour's Vice President for TGL role

Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy's new tech-infused golf league TGL is picking up speed as it prepares to launch in 2024. Frequent announcements have been made of several prominent players joining the league, and the league has recently appointed the perfect person for player relations.

Ross Berlin will handle the player relations for TGL. Berlin has massive experience in the field, having worked as the Vice President of Player Relations at the PGA Tour for a whopping 24 years before retiring in March 2022.

Berlin spoke about joining TGL in a phone interview with Golfweek.

"Tiger and Rory when they got involved kept mentioning to me that I would be a perfect fit to fill a role with this new enterprise. I couldn’t have written a better script about returning to the game than in this capacity and be able to re-establish a lot of great relationships with leading players in the game. It’s a dream come true for me so I had to jump at it."

Ross Berlin also talked about his time working at the PGA Tour:

"I enjoyed my work very much at the PGA Tour but it was getting to work that was taxing. When you jet up every Sunday to the next tournament location, that was a pain in the rear. It was that part of the job that wore me out."

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What will be Ross Berlin's repsonsibilities on TGL?

Ross Berlin (Image via Cooley Law School)

Ross Berlin will take a different approach to dealing with player relations at TGL.

Instead of looking at this new venture through the lens of PGA Tour player relations, Berlin will look at it through the lens of a consumer, particularly younger consumers like his two sons, who are in their twenties. He said:

"My sons are terribly excited about the concept of TGL,” he said, “and I think we have a winner."

Berlin started as TGL's Senior Vice President of Player Relations in November and has been hard at work securing player commitments. He will also play an important role in scheduling, working in tandem with the PGA Tour to ensure the schedules dovetail nicely, as well as team selection, and down to the nitty gritty of rehearsals and logistics.

Berlin is well on his way to fielding six three-man teams. There may be some designated alternates for each team, which could increase to 24 players, but this has yet to be determined.

So far, nine players have announced their participation in the exciting league. Ross Berlin has stated that he has 12 players who have committed and another dozen who are reviewing the plot for the 18 spots. Additional names will be rolled out over time to build momentum.

Starting in January 2024, the final rosters will compete in 15 regular-season Monday night matches, followed by semifinals and finals. The matches will take place at a tech-infused short-game complex. Every shot will be broadcast live on prime-time television for two hours.

The TGL certainly sounds like a thrilling concept and Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy have found the perfect person to handle player relations.