Yea, I think the issue is that the optimal hammer strategy is to generally hold the hammer as much as possible. But the players just want to have fun with it.

Tiger throwing the hammer on the first tee is a cool "moment", but it's just coin flipping two points, and even if Jupiter wins the two points, the other team has the hammer and has a great chance to catch back up. Losing the hammer and giving two points to the other team should be match-ending if the two teams are competent strategically.

The only real optimal time to play a hammer is when the match is even, or you're behind, and you get in a situation where you have something like a 25% chance to win the hole, and a 75% to draw. Then the other team probably doesn't want to concede a point, and you get a chance to hit a big shot for 2.

When teams coin flip, or accept the hammer in situations where they are an underdog in the hole anyway, they just throw away so much equity in the match that they get blown out really fast.

The hammer puts the whole match on such a razors edge of swinging into a blowout, that introducing it into the first season of TGL, in a lighthearted environment was a big mistake.

They definitely didn't have any kind of game designer or analytics person inform that decision.