New York Golf Club upset No. 1 seed Los Angeles Golf Club in a 6-4 thriller on Monday evening that was probably the highest level of strategic golf played throughout this season. And that was just the first of potentially five playoff matches over the next eight days.

NYGC’s win was a redemption story after their loss to that same LAGC team on Presidents Day in a match NYGC led late before LAGC stormed back to win in overtime. NYGC again led after nine holes of Triples in the Semifinal and won the first two holes of Singles to go up 5-2 before the Hammers started flying.

LAGC won the next hole on a hammer, and NYGC won the hole after that. Then, NYGC closed it out on the 14th hole, which was worth two points, after Tommy Fleetwood missed a 5-footer that would have kept LAGC alive in the match.

It was a disappointing ending for an LAGC team that went 4-0-1 in the regular season and the continuation of a hot streak for NYGC, which, after a slow start to the season, is now 3-0-1 in its last four matches with the only loss being that overtime defeat in the regular season to LAGC.

NYGC will await the winner of Atlanta Drive vs. The Bay Golf Club, which tees off on Tuesday at 7 p.m. on ESPN. NYGC lost to the two teams by a combined 13-2 score in their first two regular season matches.

Let’s take a look at the Atlanta Drive vs. TBGC matchup on Tuesday evening.

Atlanta Drive GC vs. The Bay Golf Club

Competitive leveling up

One thing I have been considering a lot over the past few weeks is how competitive the atmosphere should be for these playoffs. The regular season got the competitive juices flowing for several players, and now with a trophy and prize money on the line, that intensity is only going to be ratcheted up.

That will likely be most apparent in this matchup between Atlanta Drive and TBGC. Everyone on both sides is crazy competitive, some of them sociopathically so. There is some real potential for fireworks here on Tuesday evening, which should be a blast.

HOW TO WATCH: TV & Streaming Info for the Semifinals

No Clark for TBGC

Wyndham Clark will miss Tuesday's match through injury after withdrawing from THE PLAYERS Championship. Min Woo Lee will step in to replace Clark, who has been my MVP of TGL in its first season. He leads the league in holes won, points won, total strokes gained, strokes gained off the tee and strokes gained ball striking and will be a big miss.

But Lee has been exceptional for The Bay this season, with multiple chip-ins and he leads the league with the longest average driving distance (332 yards per drive).

Clark missing out doesn’t change my overall pick, but it does make me less confident in TBGC taking down Atlanta Drive in this matchup.

Watch Singles

Here’s an interesting one: TBGC has led after Triples in every single match it has played. If that happens again here, they will likely be headed to the Finals Series.

If you can make it through Triples with a lead and some Hammers in your pocket, it becomes extremely difficult for the other team to claw its way back into contention at the end. That’s the big one to keep an eye on here as Clark would have helped with this immensely.

Porter’s Picks

I really love both of these teams, but we started the season with a dominant TBGC performance against NYGC, and I think that’s how it’s going to end in the Finals as well. This match will be fiery, but TBGC has too many horses and has been too consistent (five straight leads heading to Singles!) for Atlanta Drive to overcome.

As for individual matchups, this is how I see them playing out.

Justin Thomas vs. Shane Lowry: A great matchup of major champions. I’ll say J.T. clips him with some ridiculous putt that he ekes in to win one of their two holes.

Billy Horschel vs. Min Woo Lee: I love Horschel. I think he’s been perfect for this league and perhaps its best spokesperson. But I think Lee does his Dr. Chipinski routine at some point and beats him.

Patrick Cantlay vs. Ludig Åberg: Here’s an interesting stat – Cantlay has won just 10 points in 41 holes. Åberg (15 points in 30 holes) has been awesome all year, and I think he will take down Cantlay to send TBGC to the championship against NYGC.

Kyle Porter wrote close to 3 million words about golf over 12 years for CBS Sports and covered 47 majors and five Ryder Cups in the process. He has written three books – Normal Sport 1, 2 and 3 – and built a newsletter of 15,000 golf fans at normalsport.com.