The 2026 TGL Playoffs kicked off Tuesday night with semifinal action that pitted Los Angeles Golf Club against the defending champion Atlanta Drive GC and Boston Common Golf against Jupiter Golf Links. At the end of the night, it was Los Angeles and Jupiter who emerged from the pack as L.A. rallied to defeat Atlanta in a thriller before Jupiter steamrolled Boston in a major upset to knock out the top seed.
In the opening match, the reigning champion Atlanta Drive ran out to a fast start, taking a 4-1 lead over L.A. in the first six holes of threesomes, as the Drive’s lineup of Chris Gotterup, Patrick Cantlay and Billy Horschel came out sharp and poured in some big putts to take early control of the match. However, Los Angeles battled back in threesomes to cut the deficit to 4-3 going into singles, where it carried that momentum to a 6-4 win.
Justin Rose led L.A.’s comeback, rolling in big putts to lead the charge, including a 16-footer on the 13th hole to give L.A. its first lead of the night.
The real drama came on the 14th (and penultimate) hole with L.A. leading, 5-4. Horschel, who dominated the SoFi Center each of the last two seasons, made a bizarre decision against Sahith Theegala that proved costly to Atlanta. After Horschel gassed a birdie putt five feet past the hole, he declined a hammer thrown by L.A. despite Cantlay wanting him to accept it. That awarded the point to L.A. and made it a 6-4 match going to the final hole.
Horschel, naturally, made the putt after declining it when he took a practice attempt, and the Drive were left needing to win the last hole to force a shootout. That burden fell on Chris Gotterup, who was facing Tommy Fleetwood on a par 5. Gotterup left his eagle putt from just off the front of the green, and Fleetwood was able to get up-and-down himself for a birdie to seal the victory for Los Angeles.
If Horschel and Atlanta had simply accepted the hammer, they could have forced Theegala to make a 3-footer to maintain the lead. While he likely would have made it, it also would have given them another avenue to apply pressure on the 15th by forcing L.A. to decide whether to accept a hammer — that could have lost them the match — or decline it to go to a shootout.
In any case, L.A.’s squad is off to next week’s finals, where we’ll wait to see whether Collin Morikawa returns from his back injury or Fleetwood joins Theegala and Rose once again aiming to deliver a TGL title.
L.A. will meet a Jupiter Golf Links side that continues to surprise. Tiger Woods’ squad, which has adopted the “Bad News Bears” nickname, kept its incredible run going by knocking off Rory McIlroy’s top-seeded Boston Common squad. The two teams traded blows early, alternating wins on the first four holes, with Jupiter eventually taking a 4-3 lead into singles.
Jupiter’s young lineup of Max Homa, Tom Kim and Akshay Bhatia just kept producing brilliant shots at the right time against the veteran BallFrogs squad, which looked a bit shaky at times.
Bhatia, fresh off the biggest win of his career at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, produced a clutch moment on the second hole of singles when he answered a Keegan Bradley birdie with one of his own from just inside 9 feet to keep Jupiter’s lead at two after Boston threw the hammer.
Then Kim, two weeks after punching Jupiter’s playoff ticket with an ace, nearly did it again on the same hole to extend Jupiter’s lead to 7-3.
On the other side, McIlroy, still just 10 days removed from his back injury at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, had a particularly tough night for Boston. The World No. 2 didn’t look sharp, as he put two balls in the hazard — one with a driver and one with a long iron. He also lost both of his singles holes to Homa with the hammer in play, and those four points proved the difference in a rather shocking 9-5 win for Jupiter that sent them to the finals.
Now, it will be Homa, Kim, Bhatia and Kevin Kisner attempting to out-duel a star-studded L.A. squad. One also wonders whether Woods will consider entering the lineup for the first time this season during the best-of-three series next Tuesday and Wednesday, as there’s still the possibility he aims for a return at the Masters in a few weeks and could look for a tune-up opportunity at the SoFi Center.