Inside the making of Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy's TGL - ESPN

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — When the inaugural season of TGL launched at the SoFi Center last week, Ireland's Shane Lowry forgot to bring a tee to the hitting area to hit the first drive in the history of the tech-infused golf league.

It was one of the lighter moments in TGL's opening night, which for all intents and purposes delivered what had been promised: team golf being played on the largest simulator in the world in a state-of-the-art facility.

TGL figures to get even more eyeballs Tuesday night, when Tiger Woods and his Jupiter Links GC squad take on Collin Morikawa and the Los Angeles Golf Club (7 p.m. ET, ESPN/ESPN+).

The opening night was the culmination of more than eight years of work by TMRW Sports CEO Mike McCarley, Woods, Rory McIlroy and others in getting TGL off the ground.

McCarley spent more than two decades as an NBC Sports executive, first focusing on «Sunday Night Football» and the Olympics, and then was president of Golf Channel and head of the network's golf coverage from 2011 to 2021.

It was during the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, that McCarley first came up with the idea of launching golf as a team sport.

«What you found yourself doing in the four years in between Olympics is spending a lot of time with various sports because they want to find out how they could better present themselves on TV four years later,» McCarley said. «You're helping them find little things that a sport can do better on TV.»

While leading NBC's golf coverage, McCarley realized that U.S. Opens played on the West Coast — in prime time on the East Coast — were TV ratings bonanzas, and team events such as the Presidents Cup, Solheim Cup and Ryder Cup created more drama and tension than individual