A confession: I can’t stop thinking about the architecture of TGL courses.
Just another day me sketched out some thoughts on the brilliance of the Stinger (as well as the Cenote), two stunning additions to this season’s repertoire of mega-sim holes that have pros going head-to-head in measured Full-Swing, low-launch contests and sending drivers flying 30 yards over the green on an intentionally par-3. They were both designed by Agustin Pizá, a visionary architect who seems to have found his calling in a world of golf without borders, taking the opportunity to ask questions about the game of golf in four dimensions, playing holes that go forward. AND backwards plus other inspired brain games.
until thursday another one came the shocking fall.
The anti-Pizá, in my mind, was Gil Hanse – arguably the hottest golf course architect in the real world and a TGL addition for Season 2. I don’t say the anti-Pizá, because Hanse is kind of a wet blanket; he’s been talking about “fun” in the architecture course literally his entire career and was game for this hilarious Leaving the SoFi Center. But he is definitely more of a traditionalist; in addition to his original designs, he’s an expert at real-life restorations, and in his opening remarks as part of this TGL experiment, he called upon several Golden Age designers as inspiration.
(Editor’s note: My TGL fixation stems in part from our last visit, on YouTube or below)
“>
“On some of our TGL holes, we decided to honor the concepts, thoughts and styles of some of the greatest designers from the history of golf such as AW Tillinghast, Alister MacKenzie, Donald Ross, etc.,” said Hanse.
His debut design, “Stone and Steeple,” followed that ethos. The 590-yard par-5 seemed a believable addition to a country club in a bucolic New England town.
TGL announced today that Gil Hanse has of course joined the league’s stable of architects.
Hanse called his involvement with TGL “liberating,” saying, “Designing holes for TGL has given us an opportunity to step out of our comfort zone and into other aspects of the golf course… pic.twitter.com/q842rBwICp
— Brentley Romine (@BrentleyGC) December 2, 2025
It contained a graveyard on the left side – every TGL match is a reminder of our ultimate mortality – but Hanse referred to Taconic Golf Club as inspiration (where he ran a restoration in Williamstown, Mass., perhaps the greatest country on earth) and a press release compared the hole’s fairway bunkering to Hanse’s work on Baltusrol’s low course in New Jersey; this is a Tillinghast restoration. This was a tribute to the Golden Age of the big screen.
Then came this one.
🚨 NEW HOLE DESIGN JUST DROPPED 🚨
Last number | Par 3 | 241 yds
In a world that was destroyed, this bridge still decides who will cross.
Designed by Gil Hanse, The Last Toll requires courage under the beam, touch on the road or craft around the towers. There is no charge… pic.twitter.com/zuM22C5rum
— TGL (@TGL) January 16, 2026
“The Last Toll” is a 241-meter window into a future where a massive city has been destroyed, but a brave green guardian lives on. Its centerpiece is a giant piece of bridge, still standing even though everything around it is broken, that you’ll have to navigate to land anywhere near the green. “In a world that fell apart, this bridge still decides who will cross,” said the TGL announcement.
Old Tom Morris has his Road Hole in St. Andrews. Now Hanse has his own “Road” hole in TGL. Starting next week, we will all witness as the teams face an unprecedented challenge in an unforgiving landscape – the kind of hole that would make Cormac McCarthy proud.
Hans video explanation is extremely dead. While hearing the hole’s name out loud adds another dimension — The Last Toll is a clever homophone for The Last Hole — he casually mentions that his team “tried to look into a dystopian, post-apocalyptic version of the future” even though no team in the history of course design has ever used it as a North Star.
“These vertical hazards have always been of interest to us,” he says, downplaying the fact that this “vertical hazard” looks suspiciously like a zombie-ridden Brooklyn Bridge. (It is unclear if this is any kind of comment congestion pricing.)
His Tillinghast tribute now seems like a distant memory.
I drew some Golden-Tee parallels to the holes of Pisa, which immediately stretched our concepts of what a golf hole could be. Now Hanse is taking a step further into the realm of fantasy; he is immersing us in the middle of a story. What happened to make the cityscape look like this? Who or what is responsible? Are members of Jupiter Links and LA Golf Club the last six people on earth? And seriously, who’s watering the green? Hanse is sending a message with this design: I can even adapt to this weird alternate reality.
(There might be another question worth asking: After a graveyard opening and a post-apocalyptic chase, should we be worried about you, Gil?)
This is all funny, of course. And TGL still it doesn’t have to be for you. But it’s fun to see some of golf’s brightest and most creative minds pushed out of their day to be ever more creative. Designers are pushing the boundaries and then gamers are too. It’s not real golf. It’s something different.
Let’s see what’s next.
“>
