The New TGL Golf League Has a Rule Called the Hammer, but What Does That Mean?

A new indoor golf league called TGL debuted in January, and it comes with a whole new set of rules. This indoor golf league combines simulations with real greens, but it also includes a new rule called the Hammer.

As TGL becomes more familiar and people learn how golf works in this new indoor setting, many are wondering what the Hammer is and why TGL decided to include it. Here's what we know.

The Hammer is a yellow-orange piece of cloth that features a hammer design, and it's designed to make the stakes of any given hole a little bit higher. When a team throws the hammer down, the point total available for a given hole increases by one.

TGL is scored based on who does better on a given hole. The winning team gets a point, and the losing team gets no point.

If a team throws down a hammer before the start of a hole, then the opposing team has to accept it. That raises the stakes on that hole, because the team that performs better is going to get double the points (two instead of one). If a team throws the hammer down during any shot on a hole, though, the opposing team has the option to reject it. If they do, they forfeit the hole, though.

If, for example, you know the opposing team has a major advantage on a given hole and they throw down the hammer, you might reject it to limit them to scoring just one point on the whole instead of two.

Although the hammer was initially traded between teams, TGL updated the rules so that each team now gets three hammers at the start of a match, and they can use one on any given hole, but only one.

Because TGL is a team sport and is not a competition of one against the field like most outdoor golf tournaments, the Hammer is one way that TGL has found to up the stakes. If a team is confident on a given hole, they'll throw their hammer down immediately, and increase the risk and reward on a given hole.

Although outdoor golf has come with some prestige, the Hammer speaks to the ways TGL is a little bit sillier than your average PGA tour.

That silliness is part of the fun of the sport, and it's something that TGL could lean into a little bit more. When you're dealing with virtual courses, there's no reason you can't have fun with the designs and create the kinds of courses that could never exist in the real world.

TGL has been a modest success so far, and speaks to the way golf is trying innovative new things to expand its audience. As the rule change around the hammer suggests, though, things are far from set in stone, and it's very possible that TGL will continue to tweak itself moving forward.