TGL bosses 'doing cartwheels' after week one viewing figures revealed

TGL bosses are likely in a bullish mood after the opening night of Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods' joint-venture reached 3.2m unique viewers on ESPN.

Zoomph reported that the first contest, pitting The Bay against New York, averaged 1.2m viewers throughout the entire broadcast. 

Viewership peaked at 1.1m between 9.15pm-9.30pm ET, according to the report. 

TGL finally began on Tuesday following a 12-month delay after the purpose-built venue in Palm Beach, Florida, was damaged due to a storm. 

Former Open champion Shane Lowry hit the opening tee shot for The Bay and he and his teammates - Ludvig Aberg and Wyndham Clark - ran out 9-2 winners against Xander Schauffele, Rickie Fowler and Matt Fitzpatrick. 

Lowry joked that he was going to be the Scottie Scheffler of indoor golf, prompting laughs from Woods and McIlroy who were part of the 1,600 crowd at the SoFi Center. 

The Irishman went to record the clinching point for The Bay in their victory, besting Fowler in the singles to make the score 7-1 before Aberg and Clark added to the rout.  

"It's the most fun I've ever had playing golf," Clark later told reporters. 

The numbers are likely to be even better next week when golf's needle-mover, Woods, 49, makes his TGL debut. 

Woods and his Jupiter Links teammates, Max Homa, Tom Kim and Kevin Kisner are playing Los Angeles' Tommy Fleetwood, Collin Morikawa, Justin Rose and Sahith Theegala. 

All the action next Wednesday gets underway at 12:00am ET. 

Following confirmation of the week one viewing figures, a number of golf fans took to X to express their early verdicts. 

Here's some comments:

"It was really well produced, lots of angles and graphics and action happening. I thought it would be way more boring than it was, I'm stoked to watch Tiger's match in a couple weeks."

"It was a lot more fun than I thought it would be."

"Keeping the thought in mind this in no way is meant to replace professional golf, I thought it was fun. Definitely some tweaks and need the players to have more personality. But it was a good start."

"It looked good on TV but also has the potential to get old quick. Few changes need to be made. Have to see how it goes."

Watched our latest YouTube video?