PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Earlier Tuesday, Sahith Theegala was grinding with his driver. The club had let him down mightily in the opening match of the best-of-three TGL finale. But Theegala ended up going from a man on a mission to the man of the match as Los Angeles Golf Club dominated Jupiter Links GC to win the SoFi Cup.<\/p>\n
Theegala drove the green on the par-4 8th from 305 yards to set up a big win for Los Angeles before rolling in a twisting birdie on the very next hole to,\u00a0essentially,\u00a0put Los Angeles up for good. They thumped Jupiter Links 9-3, ending Match 2 with five holes left.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Jupiter Links glass slipper was broken. The Cinderella story was no more.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s just a sport where you’re not on top a lot, so got to savour every moment of being on top, and just so elated to do it with these guys,\u201d Theegala said. \u201cThese guys are family now.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the end, Los Angeles was just too strong for the Jupiter Links squad, who were without arguably their best player through the championship, as Akshay Bhatia had a previous commitment on the DP World Tour in India.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Los Angeles was the No. 1-ranked team in Season 1 but suffered an early exit last year at the hands of New York Golf Club in a\u00a0playoff\u00a0upset. Los Angeles bounced back with aplomb in Season 2, however, and ended 2026 on a four-match win streak.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t know whether it’s resilient or adaptable, but I feel like we’ve won a lot of different ways, and I think that’s been the big difference in our team this year versus last year. We were kind of great last year all through the regular season, and then the first hurdle came and we fell at it. But we’ve had a lot of hurdles this season. We’ve been down in matches, had to fight back. We were down early in the match today, didn’t panic, and that’s\u00a0through good messaging and trusting our process and trusting all the work we’ve put in as a team and trusting each other,\u201d Justin Rose said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was weird the way the match went, but we just owned those big moments.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jupiter Links was up 1-0 early after Tiger Woods \u2014 making his first TGL start in over a year \u2014 roped a 3-wood from 279 yards to a spot just shy of the green, leading to a birdie for his squad. Woods then set up another point for Jupiter Links on No. 4, as he chipped to just a couple of feet. Max Homa converted the birdie to put Jupiter Links up 2-0.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Los Angeles evened it 2-2 after it threw the hammer on No. 6 and Theegala made a six-foot birdie. They then took the lead after Woods missed a three-foot par putt on the next hole.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Los Angeles took a 6-2 lead heading into singles\u00a0(after a 6-0 run)\u00a0before Rose ended it\u00a0\u2014\u00a0almost shockingly fast. Jupiter Links threw the hammer ahead of the tee shots, but Rose hit his approach to just five feet on the par 5 for an eagle. Los Angeles threw a hammer of their own to make the hole worth three points. Homa\u00a0then\u00a0missed his birdie to try to stay alive on the hole, and with Los Angeles up 9-3, the match was over.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were last (in Season 1), and now we\u2019re second. Only way is up,\u201d said Homa, who admitted he made a mathematical error in accepting the late hammer.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t\u00a0seem that\u00a0everyone in the SoFi Centre was entirely upset at the result, as they got to see Tiger Woods hit golf balls again.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Woods\u2019 last TGL match was March 4th,\u00a02025, and he\u2019s since had two surgeries. His last start on the PGA Tour was The Open Championship in 2024.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Woods\u2019 golf swing looked solid Tuesday,\u00a0and\u00a0it didn\u2019t appear his ball speed had taken a hit despite sitting on the sidelines for more than 12 months.\u00a0The putter\u00a0did look a\u00a0little shaky \u2014 blame that on the rust and not being in a competitive environment in quite some time.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve never really struggled with ball speed. Ball direction is a different story. I’ve hit it left and right most of my life, hence my last name is Woods,\u201d he said with a smile. \u201cEven as I’ve gotten older and with the body not quite what it used to be, I can still get it up there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Woods said he felt fine physically, but he felt like he was getting \u201ciced\u201d through the match without the normal flow of a regular golf round. It was more like a Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup, where you might not hit a meaningful shot for eight or nine holes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s likely Woods felt OK Tuesday night, however, because he barely hit any balls.\u00a0Woods admitted he just hit a \u201ccouple drives\u201d and then a \u201ccouple putts,\u201d which is an awfully different output than preparing\u00a0for a full week of professional golf at the highest level.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The question about Woods\u2019\u00a0body is one that will need to be answered sooner rather than later if Woods wants to tee it up at the Masters.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
But don\u2019t get it twisted \u2014 Woods wants to be there.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve been trying,\u201d Woods said. \u201cJust this body\u2026\u00a0it doesn’t recover like it did when it was 24, 25. It doesn’t mean I’m not trying. I’ve been trying for a while. I’ve had a couple bad injuries here over the past years that I’ve had to fight through, and it’s taken some time. But I keep trying. I want to play.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI love the tournament. I’ve loved being there since I was 19 years old. It’s meant a lot to me and my family over the years.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
While Woods has, of course, given the golf world a ton of great memories at Augusta National, he\u2019ll have to save a big moment at the SoFi Centre for another time in the future.\u00a0It was a heck of a run by Jupiter Links \u2014 who nearly went from worst-to-first between the first and second years of TGL \u2014 but with Los Angeles boasting two of the\u00a0top-five players in the world (technically three, but Collin Morikawa was home with an injury), the better team won on this night.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s so, so special to do it as a team,\u201d Theegala said.\u00a0\u201cI’m just so excited for us to celebrate this, and I’m already looking forward to next year.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Earlier Tuesday, Sahith Theegala was grinding with his driver. The club had let him down…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-559214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}