Golf's new indoor league is set to tee off — here's what to know

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The brand-new, indoor, tech-infused golf league backed by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy tees off tonight on primetime television. I'm guessing you have a lot of questions, so here's a guide to TGL golf.What does TGL stand for? Tomorrow's Golf League — a nod to TMRW Sports, the techy sports and entertainment company founded by Woods, McIlroy and a former NBC golf executive.What is TGL, exactly? In a nutshell, it's a primetime, indoor, 3-on-3 team golf league for top PGA Tour pros. It's played in a huge custom-built facility in Florida with a bunch of fancy technology to make it as close to "real" golf as possible. Matches are played in a TV-friendly two hours, the players will be mic'd up, and the venue seats more than 1,000 fans.Indoor golf? How does that work? You're probably familiar with those indoor golf simulators that seem to be popping up everywhere these days. They're especially popular this time of year, helping golfers pass the long winter months by hitting into a video screen that shows the flight of the ball as they play a virtual course. Well, picture that, except the TGL screen is 64 feet high by 53 feet wide — 24 times larger than a standard simulator. The playing area is much bigger too — about the size of a football field. It's made up of two sections: a screenzone and a greenzone, where golfers will play their shorter shots more like real golf. Each hole starts with players hitting their tee shots from a big square of natural grass into the giant screen 35 yards in front of them. Depending on where the ball "lands," according to the simulator, they'll hit their approach shot from the fairway, rough or sand square (all real stuff).  Once they get within 50 yards of the green, players turn 180 degrees to the greenzone at the opposite end of the arena to finish out the hole in a more realistic fashion. There's an actual physical green complex, surrounded by three bunkers filled with the same kind of sand they use at Augusta National. The green sits on a giant turntable that can rotate it 360 degrees, while a hydraulics system underneath the putting surface can change the slope, allowing for a different setup for each hole. Designers have created 30 different holes from screen to green. If you want more help visualizing all this, there's this explainer page on the TGL website with some useful words, photos and videos showing how everything works.How do the matches work? Each match involves two of the league's six teams. Only three of the four players on each team compete in a given match. Matches are made up of two sessions totalling 15 holes. The first nine holes are "triples," a 3-on-3 alternate-shot format. The final six holes are head-to-head singles, with each golfer playing two holes against the same opponent. Each hole is worth one point, unless a team throws down "the hammer." This doubles the value of a hole to two points, but after using it you must hand over the hammer to the other team. If overtime is needed, a closest-to-the-pin contest decides the match. Another twist is that there's a 40-second shot clock. However, each team gets four timeouts — two per session.How does the season work? Matches will be played once a week to start, and then twice a week toward the end of the season. They'll all happen on Mondays and Tuesdays, allowing players to fit TGL between their regular Thursday-Sunday PGA Tour events. The six teams will play each other once to complete the regular season in early March. The top four teams make the playoffs, which begin with single-elimination semifinals on March 17 and 18, followed by a best-of-three championship series March 24-25 (two weeks before the Masters). The winning team will hoist the SoFi Cup and split $9 million US from the total prize pool of $21M. Here's the full schedule. Who's playing? What are the teams? Woods and McIlroy are both in the league, though they're not part of tonight's match between New York Golf Club and The Bay Golf Club, starting at 9 p.m. ET on Sportsnet (ESPN is televising in the U.S.). Because TGL is partnering with the PGA Tour, no one from the rival LIV Golf League is allowed to play. Scottie Scheffler, the world's No. 1 golfer, decided not to sign up, but the rest of the PGA Tour's biggest stars are almost all involved. Unfortunately, the list does not include any Canadians. Here are the rosters for every team: Atlanta Drive Golf Club: Patrick Cantlay, Lucas Glover, Billy Horschel, Justin Thomas. Boston Common Golf: Keegan Bradley, Hideki Matsuyama, Rory McIlroy, Adam Scott. Jupiter Links Golf Club (representing Jupiter, Fla.): Max Homa, Tom Kim, Kevin Kisner, Tiger Woods. Los Angeles Golf Club: Tommy Fleetwood, Collin Morikawa, Justin Rose, Sahith Theegala. New York Golf Club: Matt Fitzpatrick, Rickie Fowler, Xander Schauffele, Cameron Young. The Bay Golf Club (San Francisco Bay Area): Ludvig Aberg, Wyndham Clark, Shane Lowry, Min Woo Lee.Here's more on the teams and players. Will this be any good? I'm generally skeptical of gimmicky new things. And do we really need more tech in our lives? But I'm going to give TGL a shot tonight out of curiosity, and because I think some of its ideas are interesting. One thing I like is that TGL allowed its course designers to really use their imaginations. While some holes seem like they could exist in the real world, others look like something out of a Robert Trent Jones acid trip. For example, a 528-yard par-4 called Flex is set on an active volcano where players hit over molten lava to reach the green. A desert-style par 5 called Quick Draw reminds me of a Wile E. Coyote cartoon and plays 720 (!) yards around a canyon, unless you roll the dice and hit your tee shot onto a lonely plateau that cuts it down to 538 yards — but at the risk of your ball plunging hundreds of feet to its death. You'd need a helicopter (and maybe a death wish) to play these holes in real life. But, to me, this fantastical element is a feature, not a bug. After all, if you're going to create a virtual golf course, why not lean into it and make something that would be impossible to build in real life? Here's a guide to all the holes.  Another smart TGL innovation is the shot clock. Golf fans have been grumbling about the pace of play since time immemorial, but no one seems to have the stomach for riling up the purists with a hard limit. Of course, baseball experienced the same anxiety when it introduced a pitch clock a couple years ago — until pretty much everyone immediately agreed that it made the game better. TGL, almost by definition, has already alienated golf purists. So this is the perfect arena to test out how regular fans and players respond to a clock. Really, though, I have no idea whether TGL will actually be good. Tonight could be the first step into golf's bold new digital future, or maybe it'll just leave us longing to touch real grass.