The inaugural season of TGL is nearing its conclusion.

The high-tech simulator golf league, launched by TMRW Sports—a sports entertainment venture backed by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy—will wrap up its first season this month. Playoffs begin on March 17 and finish during the week of March 24.

While opinions remain divided on the league’s long-term prospects, the venue itself has received widespread praise. However, it’s worth noting that SoFi Center, where matches take place, was almost an entirely different facility—until fate, and Mother Nature, intervened in November 2023.

Located on the Palm Beach State College campus in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, SoFi Center is a cutting-edge, 250,000-square-foot stadium. It features a 1,500-seat steel-roofed structure built around the world’s largest golf simulator screen and a 41-yard-wide rotating putting green, equipped with actuators to adjust the surface between holes.

Originally, SoFi Center was designed as a domed stadium with an air-supported roof. Construction was nearly complete when, in November 2023, an overnight power outage caused the dome to collapse.

Later that same day, severe storms swept through Palm Beach Gardens, ripping the canvas roof from its cable-supported structure and leaving everything inside—including the state-of-the-art simulator and putting green—exposed to the elements.

TGL had initially planned to launch its debut season just two months later, in January 2024. Organizers considered delaying the start until fall, but with extensive damage to repair and a strategy centered around leveraging the NFL postseason to promote the league, they ultimately decided to postpone the launch by a full year.

“It became obvious that the damage was going to be a lot worse than what I was originally told,” TMRW Sports CEO Mike McCarley told ESPN. “By the end of that day, we knew the date that we had picked was no longer reasonable.”

That extended delay allowed for an extensive redesign of the center, which would be transformed from a domed stadium into a steel-structured arena with a traditional roof.

“The first time I heard the words ‘blessing in disguise’ was from Tiger Woods, and [the delay] allowed us to do a lot of things that may have had to wait until Season 2,” McCarley said. “From a tech standpoint, it gave our teams more time to kind of build their community and market and promote having the lab in Palm Beach. It gave the players more time to come in and test and give us feedback.

“That blessing in disguise is probably an apt description because there are a lot of things that were improved with the benefit of time.”

SoFi Center is a rare exception—storm damage is hardly ever seen as a blessing in disguise when it comes to sports venues and large facilities.

Yet designing these structures to withstand natural disasters is becoming increasingly challenging as extreme weather events grow more frequent and severe.

Less than four hours west of Palm Beach Gardens, in St. Petersburg, Florida, local officials, Major League Baseball, and the Tampa Bay Rays are still dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Milton, which battered Tropicana Field last year.

The Rays’ longtime home—where they’ve played since their inaugural season—suffered severe damage when Milton’s 120 mph winds shredded its canvas roof, which had been designed to withstand gusts up to 115 mph.

Heavy rains that followed only made matters worse, causing extensive interior damage to the ballpark. Just recently, St. Petersburg’s City Council approved more than $950,000 for the next phase of repairs, with hopes of having the stadium ready for Opening Day of the 2026 MLB season.

In the meantime, the Rays will play their home games at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa—the spring training home of their AL East division rivals, the New York Yankees.

“We deeply appreciate that the Yankees have graciously allowed us to play at Steinbrenner Field for the 2025 season,’’ Rays Principal Owner Stuart Sternberg said in a prepared statement. “The hurricane damage to Tropicana Field has forced us to take some extraordinary steps, just as Hurricanes Helene and Milton have forced thousands of families and businesses in our community to adapt to new circumstances as we all recover and rebuild.’’

The Challenge of Fighting Mother Nature

The United States is grappling with escalating challenges in safeguarding its buildings and infrastructure against the rising threat of natural disasters. As climate change amplifies the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events—such as hurricanes, wildfires, floods, and earthquakes—the need for resilient buildings and infrastructure has never been more pressing.

But efforts to strengthen the nation’s physical framework are hindered by financial, regulatory, social, and technical barriers. Outdated infrastructure, funding limitations, and resistance to change create a complex path toward a safer, disaster-resistant future.

A key challenge lies in the age of the nation’s infrastructure. As was the case with Tropicana Field, much of it was constructed decades ago, before modern building codes accounted for climate-related risks. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) reports that many bridges, roads, and public buildings are in “poor” or “mediocre” condition, making them highly susceptible to damage or collapse during disasters.

The retrofitting process for aging infrastructure is particularly challenging, as it often requires extensive structural modifications. Many older bridges, for instance, were not built to withstand the level of flooding or high winds experienced in recent years. Additionally, projects such as reinforcing levees or upgrading flood barriers involve intricate engineering work and lengthy construction timelines, causing disruptions to daily life. As these structures continue to deteriorate, the risk of catastrophic failures grows.

GPRS can be the first step in helping you rebuild after a natural disaster – but we can also help you proactively assess your facility or campus to plan responsible investments in resiliency projects.

Our utility locating, concrete imaging, 3D laser scanning, video pipe inspection, and mapping & modeling services give you an accurate and complete picture of the Built World above ground and beneath your feet. And all this data is at your fingertips 24/7 thanks to SiteMap® (patent pending), our facility and project management platform that provides accurate existing conditions documentation to protect your assets and people.

GPRS is currently scheduling live, personal SiteMap® demos. Click below to schedule your demo today!

[Insert SiteMap demo scheduling button]