Yahoo Sports AM: TGL is here at last

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🚨 Headlines

🏈 NFL coaching carousel: The Jaguars fired Doug Pederson (and kept GM Trent Baalke); the Bears requested permission from the Cowboys to interview Mike McCarthy; Rex Ryan is confident he’ll get the Jets job; Antonio Pierce believes his job is safe in Las Vegas.

🏆 Bison back on top: North Dakota State staved off a second half comeback to beat previously undefeated Montana State, 35-32, and win its record 10th FCS national championship, all of which have come since 2011.

🏀 AP polls: Tennessee, the only remaining undefeated team in D1 men’s hoops, stayed atop the rankings for the fifth straight week; the Big Ten and SEC each have four teams in the top 10 of the women’s poll, led by No. 1 UCLA.

📺 Merger Monday: Disney is merging its Hulu+ Live TV streaming service with FuboTV in a deal that will create one of the country’s largest pay TV providers. It also clears the way for Venu (Disney’s joint venture with WBD and Fox), which Fubo had sued to stop from launching.

⚽️ Captain America delivers: Christian Pulisic’s sensational season continued Monday when he scored the equalizer to help AC Milan beat rival Inter Milan, 3-2, in the Supercoppa Italiana Final.

⛳️ Now on the tee: TGL is here at last

TGL, the new tech-infused golf league founded by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy and backed by the PGA Tour, finally tees off tonight (9pm ET, ESPN) after a one-year delay.

Who’s playing? Six teams of four will play a 15-match regular season (followed by semifinals and a championship) starting tonight and running through late March.

• Jupiter Links Golf Club: Tom Kim (world No. 23), Max Homa (40), Kevin Kisner (828), Woods (1,129)

• Boston Common Golf: McIlroy (3), Hideki Matsuyama (5), Keegan Bradley (12), Adam Scott (19)

• Los Angeles Golf Club: Collin Morikawa (4), Tommy Fleetwood (9), Sahith Theegala (13), Justin Rose (49)

• New York Golf Club: Xander Schauffele (2), Cameron Young (34), Matt Fitzpatrick (41), Rickie Fowler (75)

• The Bay Golf Club: Ludvig Åberg (6), Wyndham Clark (7), Shane Lowry (27), Min Woo Lee (50)

Star-studded field: Those 24 golfers have a combined 231 PGA Tour wins and 33 major titles between them. Woods, of course, has over one-third of those wins (82) and nearly half the majors (15).

The stadium: TGL matches will be played at the 1,500 seat SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida — a purpose-built venue that mixes virtual golf with the real thing. Each hole begins with a tee shot into a massive screen that measures 64 feet high by 53 feet wide.

• Subsequent shots from more than 50 yards out are still hit into the screen, but they’re played off real grass hitting areas that are cut to the length of the fairway or the rough, depending on the lie. For fairway bunkers, players will hit out of the same sand used at the Masters.

• For shots within 50 yards of the hole, play switches to the stadium’s short game complex, which comprises an actual green (made of an artificial and real grass hybrid), three bunkers (with real sand) and a surrounding chipping area (artificial turf).

Fully customizable green: The putting surface sits on a series of 567 hydraulic jacks to create countless different slopes and undulations. The green has seven cup placements and rotates 360 degrees to change the angle of approach for each hole.

And about those holes… Rather than playing virtual renditions of existing courses, TGL will use 30 new holes from three designers that can be played in any order.

• Many of the holes — like Augustín Pizá’s “Serpent,” Nicklaus Design’s “Riptide” and Beau Welling’s “Pin Oak” — are traditional designs. But others lean into the creativity afforded by TGL’s virtual nature.

• For example: “Flex” (pictured above) is a 528-yard par 4 set in an active volcano, and “Sterling” is a sword-shaped hole split down the middle by a bunker that resembles a war-time trench.

How matches work: Teams go head-to-head for 15 holes, with matches split into triples (holes 1-9, alternate shot) and singles (holes 10-15). The made-for-TV matches are designed to last just two hours with the help of a 40-second shot clock.

• Each hole is worth one point, with no points for ties and no carryovers. If the match is tied after 15 holes, a closest-to-the-pin competition determines the winner.

• A win is worth two points in the standings, and like hockey an overtime loss is worth one. The top four teams will advance to the single-elimination semifinals.

A fun twist: To raise the stakes on certain holes, team can throw “The Hammer,” which switches hands after every use. If accepted, the hole is worth two points; if declined, the hole is conceded.

💬 Tweet of the day… “If hitting the first ever shot in TGL history tomorrow night wasn’t nerve-racking enough, imagine if I miss the 60 ft screen 🙈😂.” (@ShaneLowryGolf)

🏈 Historic feat: Evans matches Rice

Mike Evans made history on Sunday, joining Jerry Rice as the only NFL players with 11 consecutive seasons of at least 1,000 receiving yards.

The streaks: Rice accomplished the feat from 1986-96 and finished his career with 14 seasons of 1,000+ yards. Evans has, of course, benefitted from the 17-game season, but his streak dates all the way back to his rookie year in 2014. He’s never not surpassed 1,000 yards.

Food for thought… Rice is widely considered the best wide receiver in NFL history. Where does Evans rank? Top 10? Top 20? He’s criminally underrated, in my opinion.

📸 In photos: Mud, rain, sand, snow

This weekend saw athletes brave all kinds of elements, from the muddy terrain in northern Belgium to the desert sands of Saudi Arabia.

Dendermonde, Belgium — Wout van Aert battled muddy conditions to earn his first win of the Cyclocross World Cup season.

Liverpool, England — First-place Liverpool and 13th-place Manchester United played to a 2-2 draw as cold rain drenched Anfield, where snow had fallen over night.

Bisha, Saudi Arabia — Drivers raced through the sands (and sandstorms) of the Arabian Desert during the early stages of the 47th annual Dakar Rally.*

Innsbruck, Austria — The Four Hills Tournament concluded after ski jumpers took on their fourth and final snow-covered mountain in the 73rd edition of the prestigious competition.

*Fun fact: The defending Dakar Rally champion, who’s also a four-time winner, is Carlos Sainz Sr., father of the current Formula One driver. Unfortunately, he withdrew from the race on Monday after rolling his car.

⚾️ Family feud: Fight over control of the Padres

Sheel Kamal Seidler, the widow of late Padres owner Peter Seidler, is suing two of Peter’s brothers, Bob and Matt, over control of the team.

Details, via Sportico:

Sheel claims that before his death in November 2023, Peter spoke of his desire to have his wife be the team’s control person, followed by their children. She says the brothers are trying to “falsely cast themselves as Peter’s true heirs,” and that as the sole beneficiary of the trust, she should control the team.

The lawsuit ascribes racist and sexist motivations on the behalf of Seidler’s two brothers, accusing them of seeking to “wrest control” of the ball club to prevent “an Indian-American woman” from taking what they “saw as their family business and ancestral right.”

More from the lawsuit: Sheel says she frequently discussed team business with Peter and that her kids even sat in on contract signings. Since his death, however, the lawsuit alleges that Sheel and her children have been “effectively ostracized” from the team.

What’s at stake: The Padres are worth $2.03 billion, per Sportico. That’s 15th in MLB and 85th among all major North American sports teams.

✍️ Extra points

🏀 Dunk of the night: Coby White has dunked twice this entire season. His second slam was one to remember: he posterized 7-foot-4 Victor Wembanyama.

🎭 Jerry Jones, the actor: The Cowboys owner made a cameo appearance in Sunday’s episode of the Paramount+ series, “Landman,” and he was… really good!

🐶 Hoops & Hounds: The Wizards hosted “Hoops & Hounds Night” on Sunday. 140 pups were in attendance and a portion of the proceeds went to a local pet adoption nonprofit. You love to see it. (Also a great way for a 6-27 team to sell some tix!)

🏈 Mock draft 3.0: Here’s our latest NFL 2025 mock draft now that we know the order. Top 5 picks: Travis Hunter (Titans), Abdul Carter (Browns), Cam Ward (Giants), Will Johnson (Patriots), Will Campbell (Jaguars).

⚾️ Is Boras back? MLB super-agent Scott Boras entered the offseason under a thundercloud of skepticism after a stinker last winter. So far, he’s shown that he still has his fastball ($1.45 billion in contract money), but his two most daunting clients (Alex Bregman and Pete Alonso) remain unsigned.

🏀 Miss America’s boyfriend: Jazz center Walker Kessler’s girlfriend, Abbie Stockard, won Miss America on Sunday. Here’s his live reaction alongside head coach Will Hardy.

📺 Watchlist: Tuesday night hoops

Tonight’s men’s college hoops slate features a slew of marquee matchups — none better than No. 1 Tennessee at No. 8 Florida (7pm ET, ESPN2) in a battle of SEC heavyweights.

Best league in the land: The SEC may no longer rule college football, but it’s the clear-cut best basketball league at the moment. The conference has nine ranked teams (including six of the top 10) and a potentially historic number of tournament-bound programs.*

More to watch:

• 🏀 NBA: Lakers at Mavericks** (7:30pm, TNT); Celtics at Nuggets (10pm, TNT)

• ⛳️ TGL: New York vs. The Bay (9pm, ESPN)

*Bracketology: ESPN’s latest projection has 12 SEC schools in the NCAA Tournament. That would break the 2011 Big East’s record if it holds.

**Injury bug: The Mavs are already playing without Luka Dončić (calf strain), and now Kyrie Irving (bulging disc) is expected to miss at least 1-2 weeks.

🏈 NFL trivia

The Chiefs have 40 regular-season wins over the last three seasons, which is unsurprisingly the most in the NFL. Which team is second with 39 wins?

Hint: East.

Answer at the bottom.

❤️ Perspective of the day

49ers rookie Ricky Pearsall was shot in the chest in San Francisco this summer, causing him to miss six games. On Monday, he was asked to reflect on the attempted robbery that upended his rookie season and nearly cost him his life.

His response: Forgiveness wins.

I don’t know where [the kid who shot him] came from, what environment he grew up in, how he grew up. So I can’t judge him as a man just based off one action that he made, as violent as it was.

God forbid him doing that to somebody else. I don’t ever want that to happen. But for me … I have to be able to forgive him … At some point, I do want to talk to the kid [and] if I can create an impact on him in any way, I think that would be really big. I’d definitely be open to doing that.

Trivia answer: Eagles

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