Tommy Fleetwood’s Los Angeles Golf Club suffered a shock 6-4 semi-final loss to Xander Schauffele’s New York Golf Club in the TGL after the Englishman suffered a brutal lip-out on a five-foot putt.
New York GC will now face the winner of the second semi-final between The Bay Golf Club and Atlanta Drive Golf Club to determine who will be the inaugural TGL champions.
Los Angeles GC did not lose a match in the regular season and entered the play-offs in first place but it was a very different story for New York GC who bounced back from two early season losses to get to this point.
After seven even holes to get the semi-final going, Xander Schauffele won the eighth with a four-foot birdie putt. He also came up trumps on the par-five 10th and par-four 13th against Collin Morikawa, with his team-mate Rickie Fowler defeating Tommy Fleetwood on the par-four 11th.
Tommy Fleetwood had a 5ft putt to extend the match against New York Golf Club in Los Angeles Golf Club’s TGL semi-final clash but suffered a brutal lip-out which cost his side the chance to advance to the final.
In the singles holes that Schauffele won he “threw the hammer” mid-hole which brings the opportunity to double the point value of the hole. LAGC turned down the hammer on both occasions and lost a point as a result.
The victory then came for the team made up of Schauffele, Rickie Fowler and Cameron Young on the 14th hole after Fowler granted Fleetwood an opportunity when his nine-foot birdie putt missed.
However, it wasn’t to be as Fleetwood’s five-foot birdie putt, which would have won the hole, cruelly lipped out and saw himself, Morikawa, and Sahith Theegala out of the competition.
Remarkably, it marks Los Angeles GC’s only loss in regulation play, with their only loss of the regular season coming in overtime.
Celine Dion humorously sang a section of her famous song ‘My Heart Will Go On’ live at the TGL in front of Tiger Woods and Tom Kim.
“I think you look at how we started out, you know, it was a poor start,” Schauffele said. “I was watching from home (due to injury).
“The boys started rallying. (England’s Matt Fitzgerald) was with us today … I think we’re all pretty happy.
“We thought it was possible, but we knew it was gonna be a long road. We’re definitely happy to be here.”
Fleetwood admitted he had been struggling to read the putts prior to his lip-out, conceding New York GC were the worthy finalists.
“I’ve been lucky to have these guys reading the putts really. I’ve really struggled reading the putts and executing the putts on these greens,” Fleetwood said.
“I felt like I hit a good putt. I just watched it on TV. It did look like it broke a lot. What else can you do?
“We took our time. We had three of us reading the putt, picked a linehad to decline a couple of those hammers and were already down, I felt like we did a really good job of that.
“At the end of the day, you look at it, they performed better, played better and holed the putts, and good luck to those guys in the final.”
What’s next?
Live TGL
Tuesday 18th March 11:00pm
The other semi-final sees Justin Thomas, Billy Horschel and Patrick Cantlay feature for Atlanta Drive against The Bay Golf Club, who have Shane Lowry, Min Woo Lee and Ludvig Åberg, with that match live on Tuesday from 11pm on Sky Sports Golf.
The best-of-three Finals Series is held the following week, with matches on March 24 (11pm GMT) and March 25 (11pm GMT) before a series decider – if needed – on March 26 at 1am.
Who will win the inaugural TGL season and the SoFi Cup? Watch every match of the 2025 and 2026 seasons exclusively live on Sky Sports Golf. Get Sky Sports or stream with no contract on NOW.
