Is TGL Causing Injuries? Players Push Back on ‘Preposterous’ Theory

Several PGA Tour stars who participate in the indoor tech league have suffered injuries lately—and some people are blaming TGL, much to the disdain of players.

Rory McIlroy is one of several TGL players who have suffered injuries recently. | GREG LOVETT/PALM BEACH POST / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

After Tuesday night’s TGL match, a reporter posed a question to Atlanta Drive’s Billy Horschel, asking, “How do you assess the potential toll that this league may take on your time, energy, and your body as kind of some takes for flying around?”

Then, Horschel firmly interjected. 

“Just ask the question,” he said. “Just ask the question. I’m not being a butt head to you.”

So, the reporter rephrased it more bluntly: “Are players getting injured [because of TGL]?”

“No, they’re not getting injured because of TGL,” Horschel said. “I was going to answer that question based that, you know, based off you answering that. Listen, it’s a time commitment. We all knew when we signed up that it was a time commitment. And we all understood what this league had the possibility to know to be, and we have seen it in two years. Everyone's bought in, everyone has their own little role that they play.”

He added: “The injury question, no. I mean, listen, we’re used to hitting golf balls all the time, and majority of the time we're probably hitting less golf balls on a match day than we would on a normal day. So to think that players are getting injured because of TGL, I’ll use Rory [McIlroy’s] word last week, preposterous.”

This has been a hot topic recently. Many of the stars involved with TGL have suffered back injuries: Rory McIlroy, Collin Morikawa, Tiger Woods and Justin Thomas. Horschel underwent hip surgery last year. And Sahith Theegala strained his oblique last March while hitting drives at 183 mph in TGL.

McIlroy tweaked his back at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and withdrew ahead of the third round. He played in his Players Championship title defense last week, finishing T46. He also competed in Tuesday’s TGL semifinals, but won’t tee it up again until the Masters. 

Billy Horschel echoed Rory McIlroy's stance on whether TGL play is causing injuries | GREG LOVETT/PALM BEACH POST / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

At the Players Championship, though, the Northern Irishman was asked about the theory that TGL is causing injuries. And he, like Horschel, shut it down. 

“It’s a little more travel for the guys, a little more,” McIlroy, a co-founder of TGL along with Woods, told the Palm Beach Post. “To put [injuries] solely on [TGL] is preposterous. No.”

McIlroy believes his stats back that sentiment. 

“My ball speed on Tour is way faster than it is in TGL,” he said.

On the contrary, six of the 10 winners on the PGA Tour this year also participate in TGL. 

“I just hope their backs are O.K. from hoisting all those trophies,” TGL’s ESPN play-by-play voice, Matt Barrie, said on Tuesday night’s broadcast when noting that fact.

The 2026 TGL Finals will be next week between Jupiter Links GC and Los Angeles Golf Club.