December 2, 2025<\/a><\/p>\nHanse is a legend, one of the core course designers of the last 30 years with multiple top-100 courses on his CV. The USGA essentially handed the reins to him and partner Jim Wagner to restore every iconic (and needy) U.S. Open venue in recent memory. He loves the classics. He spends every chance he can out in the dirt, hopping on bulldozers, surveying the land he\u2019s given, and making beautiful, traditional golf courses.<\/p>\n
Now he\u2019s got a blank slate and a computer screen.<\/p>\n
So why did Hanse take this gig helping design holes for TGL, the two-year-old indoor league that plays its matches in an intimate arena with top PGA Tour players like Rory McIlroy and Xander Schauffele hitting shots into a 53-foot-tall screen? Why would he take an unnecessary job that elicits chuckles from his buddies and raised eyebrows?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy not?\u201d he asked. \u201cIt could be a lot of fun. Turns out it was.\u201d<\/p>\n
Much of this is due to tradition. Traditional golf. Traditional design. The traditional way to do anything. When somebody starts talking about breaking those customs, it can be met with an eyeroll. Perhaps it often should be. None of this is that serious. However, there might be something beautiful in the removal from tradition happening in TGL, if you look closely enough.<\/p>\n
Hanse is tradition, right? You know who\u2019s not? Agustin Piz\u00e1. He\u2019s from Mexico, the self-proclaimed first Latin American person to earn a master\u2019s degree in golf course architecture from Edinburgh University. He does things differently. His first solo design was on a man-made island. He designed courses for fewer resources, like an 18-hole course using six greens or \u201cbutterfly golf,\u201d using loops of six holes for different formations. He\u2019s worked with virtual reality headset golf companies.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s not Hanse, or Beau Welling, or Jack Nicklaus Design, the other men and companies asked to design TGL\u2019s original holes. Being asked to take part in this was a little scary, to be honest. It\u2019s a big stage. But Piz\u00e1 lives pretty big.<\/p>\n
When you think of the strangeness \u2014 Piz\u00e1 prefers the word extravagance \u2014\u00a0 of TGL holes, you\u2019re likely thinking of Piz\u00e1. Volcanoes. Floating triangle islands. He has a new hole for Season 2, which began Dec. 28, where players essentially have to hit a low-flight stinger under a rock formation, and there\u2019s another with a ski-ball like backboard above a green on the Yucatan Peninsula. Extravagance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like to think of myself \u2014 and my practice \u2014 as alchemists,\u201d Piz\u00e1 said. \u201cThat we\u2019re still in search of the best artistic and, in general, expression of golf. I love the Golden Age of architecture. Alister MacKenzie is my favorite architect of all time. And I\u2019ve studied a lot about him and, of course, modern architecture and the Golden Age of architecture, and I love it, and I respect it. \u2026 But I do not think that\u2019s the maximum form of expression of golf.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m still in search for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s Hanse, who sincerely assumed he was brought on to be the preserver of tradition. He watched Season 1, thought it was cool and noticed the most memorable holes were the ones that felt like a video game. \u201cI thought, \u2018Well maybe it should be our role, since we are more traditionally thought of, to build more traditional golf holes.\u2019\u201d So he made one that honored A.W. Tillinghast, the man behind Bethpage Black and Winged Foot. Another for Tom Simpson, an Englishman who worked on Muirfield. Hanse thought, \u201cIt would be a really cool take on bringing a great old dead architect\u2019s work to life on this screen.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Stone-amp-Steeple-Par-5-590-Yards-Gil-Hanse_Original-Image_m1448.jpg\")
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\n Stone & Steeple is one of Gil Hanse\u2019s early hole designs, with a church and cemetery defending the left side of the green. (Courtesy TGL)<\/p>\n
But the more they worked on it \u2014 and by the way, Hanse says it takes longer to design a TGL hole than a physical course hole \u2014 the more their minds wandered. What if we put this inside Philadelphia? What if we did a dystopian landscape? He and teammates Kevin Murphy and Ben Hillard realized the fun might come in taking those traditional tentpoles but making them weird.<\/p>\n
Sorry. Extravagant.<\/p>\n
They signed on for five holes. The first three could have existed in the real world. The last two, Hanse said, are \u201cbased on the classic principles of architecture, but in settings that we would never ever be able to design in. That was liberating in a way.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is truly a whole new world for Hanse. He and his team don\u2019t even use computer design tools for their sand-and-grass courses. It\u2019s all via pencil, usually drawn up on-site as they adjust to the land they\u2019re given. TGL is an actual blank slate in a field in which blank slates don\u2019t exist. They\u2019re taking drawings to the computer graphics teams and seeing them pop up on screen, adjusting this angle here, leveling that ground there. Complete freedom. Suddenly, courses had collapsed bridges in the background, because why not?<\/p>\n
Piz\u00e1 lives for this part because he was born into it. He was asked what the number one thing he learned from Season 1 was: Verticality.<\/p>\n
Usually, he says, architects play with the horizontal. They use angles, left to right, to challenge the golfer. But the world is their oyster here. So in Season 2, he got vertical. Hence Stinger, the hole inspired by Tiger Woods\u2019 famous low tee shot. The first three players to play the hole hit directly into the rock formation, failing to get low enough. It wasn\u2019t until youngster Michael Thorbjornsen hit a low iron that somebody succeeded.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Stinger-Par-4-414-Yards-Piza\u0301-Golf_Original-Image_m1499.jpg\")
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\n Stinger has become a signature hole already for TGL, asking participants to hit a low, running shot to get under a canyon ledge. (Courtesy TGL)<\/p>\n
Or Cenote, the Yucatan Peninsula hole with a massive ramp above the hole that takes different strategies depending on the pin location. One can try to hit a dart with a long iron, but most of the time, they will need to hit a driver and use different distances to gain momentum down the ramp to roll on the green. The higher up the drive, the longer and faster the roll.<\/p>\n
As Piz\u00e1 discusses these holes, his excitement grows. He doesn\u2019t want to look at other holes by his contemporaries, because he reveres these minds. The mere idea of the name Piz\u00e1 being in the same conversation as Hanse and Welling warms his heart. This is not just a playful hobby to him. These new holes? They are just the beginning. He has more coming; he hopes to create \u201csurprise factor\u201d as they get unveiled later in the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought that Cenote and Stinger, you know, did more than expected,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew that we had something special. You know how that\u2026 when you\u2019re a songwriter, you know that you have a special song that\u2019s out there? I knew that Stinger was special.\u201d<\/p>\n
Golf is a rather stuffy, self-serious game. The clubs. The courses. The people. And if TGL isn\u2019t for you, that\u2019s completely fine. But if there\u2019s a world where the Piz\u00e1s and Hanses of the world can enter the same arena and end up meeting somewhere in the middle\u2026 that\u2019s pretty cool.<\/p>\n