For a few minutes on Sunday in the final round of the PGA Tour’s Valspar Championship, Justin Thomas had a three-stroke lead with three holes to play. Then Viktor Hovland birdied the 14th to cut the lead to two.
Thomas followed with bogeys on the 16th and 18th, while Hovland birdied the 16th and the 17th, so that even a bogey on the 72nd hole of the tournament didn’t keep Hovland from finishing one stroke ahead of the former Alabama All-American at the top of the leaderboard.
That turn of events kept Thomas winless on the PGA Tour since he won the PGA Championship for the second time in 2022.
But Thomas did win a championship this week. On Tuesday night, his Atlanta Drive Golf Club completed its sweep in the best-of-three series deciding the champion of the inaugural TGL season.
With Thomas playing with Billy Horschel and Patrick Cantlay, the Drive defeated New York Golf Club 4-3 on Tuesday night after a 6-5 victory on Monday night to claim the SoFi Cup.
Rickie Fowler, Xander Schauffele and Cameron Young played for New York, which had a 3-0 lead on Tuesday night.
The victory earned each member of the Drive $2.25 million, including Lucas Glover, who wasn’t in the lineup for the championship series.
The Valspar Championship paid Hovland $1.566 million. Thomas won $948,300 as the runner-up.
The TGL is a golf venture from Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy. The TGL features six teams of PGA Tour golfers competing in a league format at a high-tech venue with seating for 1,500 spectators in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.
Golfers hit shots off tee boxes with real grass, fairway, rough and sand into a 64-by-53-foot simulator screen until they’re within 50 yards of the cup on 15 named holes, including the Spear, Riptide and Serpent.
After that, the virtual golf switches to shots played at the GreenZone, an adaptable green featuring 600 underground devices to change the slope of the putting surface from hole to hole.
Each match features three players from each four-man team. They compete in an alternate-shot format for nine holes, then switch to singles competition for the final six, with each golfer playing two holes.
Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X at @AMarkG1.
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