Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner, the designers responsible for restorations at several historic PGA TOUR and major championship venues, were added to the stable of architects designing holes for Season 2 of TGL presented by SoFi.

The league unveiled the first of Hanse and Wagner’s designs Tuesday, "Stone & Steeple," a lengthy par 5 inspired by famous architect A. W. Tillinghast. Hanse and Wagner’s resume is extensive. Their design firm has restored numerous notable PGA TOUR courses, including Colonial Country Club, Oakmont, Winged Foot, Southern Hills and Aronomink.

But how does that translate to designing virtual golf holes? Hanse spoke with PGATOUR.COM Tuesday for a wide-ranging Q&A, diving into every part of their partnership with TGL.

PGATOUR.COM: How did the opportunity come about?

Hanse: So Scott (Armstrong) and Ian (Mutch) at TGL reached out back in the spring, sometime, about the possibility of doing it. They asked if I knew anything about TGL, and I did. I had watched a handful of matches and actually enjoyed them.

I thought it was kinda fun and the variety of golf holes that they put in front of these guys was really interesting. Some were more like video games, some were more like, you know, real golf holes, etc. So when they reached out, our focus turned more towards, could we tap into our knowledge of a lot of great old traditional designs and golf holes and come up with a set of holes that would feel a more in the traditional realm of golf? Although we did do one hole, it's kind of in an urban setting, which is a lot of fun.

I went to all of our guys, and I said, "Hey, are you interested in doing this?" And everybody was excited.

PGATOUR.COM: Normally, in your work, you’re evaluating the land you have or calling back to a previous design and using that as your canvas. With TGL, you don’t have anything. It’s limitless, in theory. Did that make it easier or harder to design holes?

Hanse: It was a little bit harder, because as you said, you're not tapping into anything. You are tapping into the database that you've got from everything you think is really cool conceptually or practically works. Then, how would you translate that concept?

We took an A. W. Tillinghast design, his Sahara design, which is a par 5 with a cross hazard for the second shot. We incorporated that. Then we took some Tom Simpson-type holes. Ben Hillard, one of our design partners, is from Australia, and so he visualized a short par 4 that would kind of fit in a Royal Melbourne setting. Kevin Murphy, one of our design partners, is from Boston and New York, so he looked at something that might fit into more of an urban setting that would still be a cool par 3. So I think we all tapped into ideas that had some familiarity to us, but then, how do you push that? How do you take it to another level? And how do you set it into a game that ultimately is challenging the best players in the world? You know, how do you tempt them into trying shots?

We drew on some of our experience, having worked on courses that host TOUR events or host major championships and then putting everything together, personal experiences, excitement about a certain golf hole, the context that you want to present that in, and still have it be challenging for the best players in the world in a format that they don't normally play in. So I think all of those things, when you mix them up in a bowl, I think it was probably a little bit harder than just doing something in the field.

PGATOUR.COM: Some of the other designers, like Nicklaus Design and Weiling Design, created very traditional golf holes? Pizá Golf was much more out there. It seems like your holes will fall on the traditional side. Will these feel like Gil Hanse/Jim Wagner holes?

Hanse: I think there are certainly elements of our work that you're gonna see in them. I had this conversation with the TGL, you know, in our minds, it was really kind of cool to take a Tillinghast, I don't want to say, template, but to try to bring A. W. Tillinghast to life.

We've worked on his courses, we've imitated his work in our own designs, and now you're taking it into a completely different virtual realm. Most people who watch this are hardcore golfers anyway, but it was kind of cool to be able to take elements of these great early architects and introduce them into a virtual world. So that was an interesting twist that we brought that I don't know exists prior to this iteration or Season 2.

Then there’s visibility. To a certain degree, we don't mind having limited visibility, people would call it blindness, as an outcome on some of our holes, but when you're looking at a huge screen and you can't see what you're trying to accomplish, that doesn't translate, right? It can translate in the field, but in that setting, not having an elevated tee that you can see the strategy and basically figure out exactly what you want to do. I don't think that would have been a positive. It may have been something we would do in our own designs because we're figuring you're going to play the golf course multiple times, so you're eventually going to figure out where you're going. This is not a one-and-done because they may recycle a hole for different matches, but you're really only going to get one chance to play it. And if we don't show you what we are asking you to do, I don't think it's going to translate very well and not make for very good entertainment.

There's not really an original Hanse-Wagner hole in this iteration, but there are elements of things that we enjoy, risk reward, angles, etc., that certainly translate from what's on the screen to what we do in the field.

PGATOUR.COM: These holes will only be played in TGL, so does that change how you design? Can you make it harder with more hazards because you’re not also catering to the average golfer?

Hanse: Yeah, I think that's true. They've asked us to create multiple tees. There are five tees on every hole, so they can move forward or they can, change the playability week in, week out. So you do have the option just through setup of making the holes play a little bit different or feel a little bit different. But at the end of the day, you're right, the only people who are playing these are the best players in the world, so you're able to gear the location of the hazards, the way the hole is set up, you know, except for the green complex.


Everything is really more tee-shot focused or second-shot focused on a par 5. You're really catering that to a tour player level. But even then, you still have, you know, Rory McIlroy’s going to hit a different tee shot than Kevin Kisner. I'm not picking on anybody, you know, you just have to have multiple options. There's still a wide divergence between the way the best players in the world play it. So, if you make it so that only Rory can get to a certain spot, and the rest of the players can't, well, then what have you done? And what kind of options are you providing for guys who are still great golfers, but don't quite hit it as far as he does?

That has always been one of the biggest challenges in working on courses that are going to host TOUR events. You have to make sure that you're not completely favoring one type of golfer over the other, and you're trying to create a level playing field. I think Colonial (which Hanse redesigned in 2024), maybe does that better than any on TOUR.

PGATOUR.COM: You mentioned the green complexes, so let's talk about that. Often in real golf, an architect’s first job goal is to pick out the ideal green complexes and work from there. You had just one green that had to work for every hole. How did you design around that?

Hanse: It obviously limited your creativity. I think that this season – I don't understand how they do it, but they say they’re able to bring hazards closer to the Green Zone. Whereas last year, you had to have a fairly consistent area around the Green Zone that the guys would play from. So I think this year, they're able to be a little bit more aggressive in how we bring hazards in the proximity to the green. But the actual green itself, you're right, all we can do is tilt the angles and move the bunkers or move the rough and try and create it so that, you know, either we're rewarding a tee shot that's played to one area because of where the angle of the green is and the bunkers aren't blocking your view. So it was a limiting factor. I'm not going to say it wasn’t, but we accepted that.

They explained that to us right off the bat. It was just another sort of challenge to the design, right? It was something we had to, not overcome, that's probably a little bit too strong, but in almost any situation you're designing, there are frequently limitations. So you've got to accommodate those limitations and figure out the best possible way to make them work. We had so much creativity and so much flexibility to do pretty much whatever we wanted. The only limitation was at the green complex.

PGATOUR.COM: What did you notice from the golf holes just watching Season 1? Did you feel you needed to fill in any gaps?

Hanse: Yeah, I don't. I think it was just landscapes that we cherished.

As I've mentioned, Ben, obviously cherishes the Australian sandbelt. The Tillinghast hole that we've created, or that inspired us, is New England in the fall, church yard and steeples in the distance and hills. We talked a lot about Taconic Golf Club, which we spent a fall restoring Taconic up at Williamstown, Massachusetts. The Tom Simpson hole has got a lot of Sunningdale in it, where we're currently working in England. So it was, okay, here's a heathland environment. It was more golf environments that we cherish, that may have not been represented in Season 1.

From a design perspective, or feeling like we needed to fill a gap, that wasn't the motivating factor behind any of it. I think it was more just our wanting to embrace and recognize the golf landscapes that we cherish.