When the opening tee shot of the season is driven into the 64 ft x 53 ft screen inside SoFi Center, the two teams of world-class golfers will be taking on a custom-designed hole created specifically for TGL by a world-leading golf course architect and brought to life by Full Swing. Beau Welling Design from Greenville, South Carolina, has been announced as the first hole design group for TGL presented by SoFi, with others to follow.

Each match, 15 holes from the TGL catalog of original creations will be chosen and placed in a unique order. These never-played-before holes will be a mix of par 3s, par 4s and par 5s, and are inspired by different authentic landscapes such as links, canyons, beaches, deserts, and tropical locations. Every one has been designed to challenge the best players in the world.

BEAU WELLING DESIGN

With more than 125 award-winning golf courses around the world, Beau Welling Design has earned a reputation as one of the world’s premier golf design firms, emphasizing championship-caliber, yet enjoyable and playable, designs.

Led by founder and CEO Beau Welling, BWD’s expert team of designers with more than 70 years of experience have brought to life new golf course designs at Fields Ranch West at Omni PGA Frisco (Frisco, TX), Pelican Golf Club (Belleair, FL), and Omni Amelia Island (Fernandina Beach, FL) to name a few. BWD has also led 18-hole renovations at championships courses like Ocean Forest Club (Sea Island, GA), Atlanta Country Club (Marietta, GA) and many others.

BWD has crafted a selection of holes that will be used in TGL’s first season. Beau Welling said: “We are very excited for the world to see the designs, how unique they are and how different TGL is. We’re going to have some of the best golfers in the world playing a version of golf that is new and different, and, to me, that is very exciting.”

The traditional limits of golf course design - real-world environments, space and land considerations, weather and the seasons, and more - don't apply in the same way for indoor team golf.

The hybrid approach to real and virtual action inside SoFi Center presents opportunities to showcase creativity beyond what's typically possible in golf, and Beau Welling Design embraced the challenge of blending tradition with cutting-edge technology to create authentic, fun and challenging holes for TGL.

“I think our main thing initially was we kept wanting the golf holes to be representative of ‘real golf holes’ and what I mean by that is picking real-life landscapes and putting golf holes within that, and with time we started to realize that this hybrid virtual-real world created opportunities that were beyond that. You could start to imagine golf holes in places that you might never imagine golf holes…I started realizing that this was an opportunity to go do something you’d never be able to do, and we ultimately took advantage of that,” said Welling.

Ahead of the first season, here's a look at two of the holes designed for TGL by Beau Welling Design.

Hole Overview

This desert-style par 5 measuring 720/538 yards might be the ultimate risk-reward hole in TGL. Teams have a choice off the tee, play it safe to a generous fairway on the left or cut the angle and go big to a dramatic plateau rising from the canyon floor. The more aggressive approach brings plenty of risk, but a successful shot puts teams in prime position to attack the green in two.

Hole Strategy

Hole Overview

This links-style par 3 plays approximately 175 yards and takes its inspiration from the hillocks and hollows of traditional linksland, with an exposed terrain and backdrop of rolling hills. As one of the shorter par 3s in TGL there will be the temptation to take it on, but wind will be its defense.

Hole Strategy

Playing A TGL Hole

Every TGL hole starts inside SoFi Center by playing into the Screen but finishes in the real world in the GreenZone, the 22,475-square-foot short-game area that includes the Green and bunkers on a rotating turntable.

The GreenZone is designed into every virtual hole, but the configuration is different for every hole - both in terms of the undulation of the Green (which can change from hole-to-hole thanks to motorized actuators positioned underneath) and the position of the turntable.