Weekend Chat: Favorite Rounds of 2023

Club TFE,

Hey, how are ya? Good to see you again. We hope you all had a great holiday with friends and family.

We have a fun prompt and comment section teed up for today to round out the year. We’ll see you in the comments.

Club TFE housekeeping

We’ll kick off the new year next week with a Design Notebook on the courses Andy would like to see most next year as well as a selection of the biggest prospective stories in golf architecture in 2024 from Garrett. Stay tuned for that!

We launched two Club TFE fantasy golf leagues for 2024. You can join our One-and-Done League as well as our PGA Tour Weekly Fantasy League (Password: ClubTFE) to compete against fellow Club TFE members and Fried Egg Golf staffers. The One-and-Done League must be joined before the start of the Sentry on Thursday, January 4.

The first two waves of 2024 Fried Egg Golf events are open to registration and we’ll have more details on the remainder of our schedule early in the new year. REGISTER HERE for the events already open.

Your weekly question

What was your favorite round of golf in 2023?

To kick things off, we have three submissions from our team:

Will: For my favorite round of 2023, I didn’t have my clubs with me. I was in Salt Lake City visiting my soon-to-be in-laws, and one day my fiancée’s dad and I decided to make the trip up I-80 to the Mountain Dell courses. I borrowed a set of clubs from a neighbor who had clearly purchased, or been given, or won a bag of clubs in 1998, and had played little to no golf since. This was the setup:

• Titleist 975D Driver (steel shaft)
• Titleist 975F Fairway wood (steel shaft)
• Titleist DCI 2-iron through pitching wedge
• Cleveland Tour Action 56- and 60-degree wedges
• Scotty Cameron Newport Mid Slant Pro Platinum putter

Having been born in 1993, I had never played with steel-shafted woods before, but I was pleasantly surprised by how often I found the center of the face. More importantly, it was eye-opening to see what happened when I didn’t hit the sweet spot.

After playing the back nine in what felt like a moderate hurricane, my fiancée’s dad and I decided it was time to run, not walk, to the car from the 17th tee. Lightly damp, we settled into the front seat of his car, gave each other a fist bump, and headed off to find a beer. It was a memorable day. Three days later, we had an even more memorable one as he walked my bride down the aisle.

Andy: In an upset, my favorite round of 2023 was not the one I played at Augusta National after the Masters. Instead, it was a mere 30 minutes down the road in Aiken, South Carolina, at Old Barnwell, during our event The Hoot.

These days, I play in Fried Egg Golf events only when I have a specific reason to do so. At The Hoot, the reason was that Brian Schneider, one of Old Barnwell’s architects, became available to join. I partnered up with him, some people I know well from the golf industry, and a longtime friend and his brother. We were an alternate-shot 10-some. After a lengthy frost delay, we played 36 holes straight. Everyone cheered the great shots, laughed at the terrible ones, and chatted with each other throughout. It was a marathon, yet I didn’t want it to end. I can think of a dozen little moments I will never forget. This group would have had a great time playing any course, but the fact that we were playing one of golf architecture’s new masterpieces was a particular treat. An idyllic day.

The par-4 16th hole at Old Barnwell

Garrett: I spend a lot of time thinking about how design can enhance a golf experience, but of course I’m aware, as all golfers are, that a fun, memorable round requires more than architecture.

East Potomac Golf Links doesn’t offer much in the way of architectural intrigue. It once did—it began life in 1919 as a reversible design by Walter Travis, and the facility’s current steward, the National Links Trust, hopes to bring some of Travis’s features back—but today most of the holes are flat and tough to distinguish from each other. Still, my round at East Potomac in October, the day after the conclusion of the National Links Trust Symposium in Washington, D.C., was my favorite of the year. A few reasons for this:

1. Weather. It was about 60 degrees and sunny. I contend that these are the ideal conditions for golf.

2. Walkability. The flatness of East Potomac’s property is a weakness of the design but a boon for the walking golfer. I could have played 36 more holes with minimal discomfort.

3. Genius loci. The course sits on a man-made island in the middle of the Potomac River. Golfers share space with walkers, cyclists, picnickers, parents with little kids, and low-flying helicopters carrying dignitaries. Views abound of the Washington Monument and the National War College, among other D.C. landmarks. It’s one of those “I can’t believe I’m playing golf here” places.

4. Firm turf. Kudos to superintendent Elizabeth Reese. It can’t be easy to grow grass this good on what amounts to dredged-up river muck.

5. Friendly match play. The format was four-ball, and my companions were NLT project manager Jeff Arnold, NLT co-founder Will Smith, and golf architect Troy Miller. Everyone took the competition exactly seriously enough—which is to say, not seriously, but we all tried our best.

Garrett at East Potomac

But enough from us. Let’s hear about some of your favorite rounds from 2023.

Thank you all for your continued support of Fried Egg Golf. We hope you all have a safe and happy new year!