Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s virtual golf league, TG L, initially set to kick off in Palm Beach Gardens in a month, faced an unexpected setback when the venue’s roof collapsed just over three weeks ago.
Consequently, the league decided to postpone its inaugural season by a year. Despite the unfortunate delay, there are individuals involved in the project who see potential benefits arising from this situation.
Justin Rose, a London resident who joined TGL in February, expressed, “We are all coming into it pretty hot. I know the concept’s been around for a year or so, with the build-out and the tech, but I’m sure there were always going to be things to work out.
As players, we were going to come into it literally seeing it for the first time.” Rickie Fowler from Jupiter added, “It was already in a rushed state, so I think it’s only going to benefit to start in ’25.”
Situated on the campus of Palm Beach State College, the venue experienced a power outage on the night of November 14, leading to the collapse of the arena’s dome. Subsequently, the remaining portion of the air-supported structure was deflated. Fortunately, there were no injuries reported, and no damage occurred to any technology within the 250,000-square-foot dome.
Facing a tight timeline, primarily due to the broadcasting window allocated by ESPN for the events, TGL had to make crucial decisions after the venue collapse.
Less than a week after the incident, TG L released a statement, indicating that, following discussions with players, the six team ownership groups, PGA Tour leadership, and commercial partners, the decision was made to postpone the start by one year.
Billy Horschel, who joined in February, commented, “Like anything in life, the more time you have, the better chance you have of getting things right and done correctly. We were all excited to get started this year, but there were some missing elements. We were rushing to get it going.
Yes, it sucks we have to wait a year, but I think it allows us to get everything under control better, understand how things will work, and gives us a year to continue marketing and talking about what TG L’s about and how it’s going to work.”
Combining technology with in-person golf, the league comprises six teams, each featuring four PGA Tour players engaged in 18-hole match play.
Initially slated for January 9, the league aimed for 15 regular-season Monday night matches, followed by semifinals and finals. While Sajith Thee gala acknowledged the “ambitious” timeline, he believed that some criticism for attempting to kickstart the league in such a short period was unfair.
Theegala expressed optimism, stating, “I think it has a chance to even make the product better. I know they’ve done crazy amounts of research and development with the whole thing, and it was an ambitious timeline for sure. But a lot of people put in a lot of hard work. I think it’s only going to be better when it does start.
“Additionally, Tiger Woods continues to contribute to the golf scene in Jupiter by becoming an owner/player of a local team in TG L.
Lucas Glover, a Jupiter resident who joined TGL two months ago, regularly passes the structure after dropping his kids off at school. He deemed the timeline reasonable, stating, “I think they were ready.
Now I think they’ll be really ready. A year delay is unfortunate for the owners, the teams, the sponsors, all that stuff. But they can iron out the kinks even more now and get more feedback from the technology, and I think at the end, it’ll be beneficial.”
Each golfer expresses confidence that the league will proceed as intended, even with the one-year delay.”Definitely,” affirmed Rose. “There’s too much investment into it, and it’s up and running. It’s a shame what happened. I think the concept around how it was built, there was a time pressure to it. So I think this gives them a little bit of a chance to pivot.”
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