American golf star Xander Schauffele admitted he couldn’t blame fans for booing him after a botched chip shot at the inaugural edition of TGL.

Schauffele, 31, was competing for New York Golf Club against The Bay in the TGL, a competition created by golf legends Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy. The debut affair was held inside SoFi Center in Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday.

However, New York, consisting of Schauffele, Rickie Fowler, and Matt Fitzpatrick, was on the receiving end of an embarrassing 9-2 beatdown by The Bay’s four of Shane Lowry, Wyndham Clark, and Ludvig Aberg. Schauffele’s day was made worse on the 12th hole after he used a pitching wedge from on the green and thinned his shot off the back.

The two-time major winner and 2020 Olympic gold medal winner was showered with boos on the frustrating day, but he admitted he’d jeer himself too. “I probably would have booed me too,” Schauffele joked afterwards.

The latest faux pas comes after Schauffele began working with renowned coach Chris Como to make changes to his swing. Schauffele has admitted that he’s still getting to grips with his new learned technique. “Everything I was working on with Chris still feels like my swing, but it’s still something that’s a little bit uncomfortable,” Schauffele said.

“As long as I’m producing good shots I feel the confidence to keep moving in the right direction, and obviously I got a lot of confidence after some results last year. There are certain times when you’re trying to push your swing to a certain place or you stack two or three good weeks in a row and you feel really good.”

The 15-hole match lasted under two hours, and The Bay won 9-2 over New York with five holes to spare. The game worked out as TGL had envisioned, pleasing 15-time major winner Tiger Woods.

Xander Schauffele had a TGL debut to forget for team New York

Xander Schauffele had a TGL debut to forget for team New York ( 

Image:

Getty)

“This was just a dream conjured up,” Woods said on the ESPN broadcast. “Rory and I were talking about it; it’s hard to believe that dream came into reality, and we were able to take golf into another stratosphere, really.”

“It’s not traditional golf, yes. But it is golf. And that’s the main thing,” Woods added. The 49-year-old is expected to make his TGL debut on the Jupiter Links team next week. While fans will get a look at Woods on Jan. 14, the wait to watch McIlroy is even longer.

McIlroy may be forced to wait until Jan. 27 when Boston Common is pitted against Jupiter Links. The TGL regular season will run until Mar. 4, and the top four teams will advance to the playoffs. They will then compete in a best-of-three championship series a couple of weeks before The Masters.