Team Tennis has been a modestly successful enterprise in America for at least a couple decades. Now, the team concept comes to golf with the formation of the Professional Team Golf League (PTGL). And Tom Lehman and Chad Campbell have signed on as spokespersons for the league.
The PTGL aims to have eight North American-based teams competing against one another in Ryder Cup-style matches in 2007.
However, unlike Team Tennis, whose teams often include onetime superstars who've retired from the tournament circuit - such as Martina Navratilova and Pete Sampras - the Professional Team Golf League will stock its teams with young, developing golfers playing the mini-tour circuits.
But the PTGL goes one big step farther than any other sports league we know of by allowing its fans to have a role in directing the on-course action.
"While people think of golf as a sport of individuals, PTGL makes it anything but," PTGL founder and chairman Dave Braun is quoted as saying on the league Web site. "As match play catches fire with players and fans alike, PTGL is advancing this popular team approach further as the first league to put paid professional teams together for a season of play while getting fans in on the action."
And that action gets started with a kick-off event Dec. 13-16, a USA vs. Canada showcase featuring American and Canadian golfers who play on the Canadian Tour. This event, taking place at Rose Hall Resort and Country Club at Montego Bay, Jamaica, will showcase the competition formats and also serve as a warm-up for fans who want to get involved in actually coaching their team via the PTGL Web site (more on that below).
Here's how the PTGL will work:
- The league will hire touring professionals - golfers not playing on the PGA Tour or Nationwide Tour, but members of potentially any tour below those levels - and place them on teams based around North America.
- Those teams - 8 of them planned for the first season, 2007 - will host visiting teams or travel to play "away games," just as teams in other sports do.
- The team vs. team matches will take place over long weekends, Friday-Sunday, with three days of matches modeled after the Ryder Cup format (singles, four-balls and foursomes).
- The top four teams at the end of the "regular season" advance to a single-elimination playoff to crown the PTGL champions.
"I am particularly proud to be involved with PTGL because of the unprecedented support it offers golfers working their way through the 'golf ranks.' " Lehman said. "The opportunity to play together on a team and build camaraderie, while being paid a consistent and reliable income, is a(n) ... exciting opportunity. "PTGL extends the playing calendar with high-level competitive match play and provides a venue for touring professionals to reach their full potential."
The second new component the PTGL is bringing to golf is the aforementioned involvement of the fans. Fans of each team will be able to influence how that team plays on the course.
Next Page: How fans can really "coach" the teams
