Weekend Chat: Looking Ahead to 2024

Club TFE,

Welcome to 2024! And for the purposes of this post, welcome to the first weekend chat of 2024. If you’re new to Club TFE or just haven’t participated in these chats before, we do a little bit of everything in this post:

• The header image will often be a sneak preview of the following week’s Course Profile, and we encourage guesses in the comment section. If you choose to play this game, you’ll have to compete with fellow member Adam T., who is the undefeated reigning champion.
• Next, we do a quick rundown of Club TFE housekeeping. This will include any news or updates you should know about as a member.
• Finally, we end with a weekly question that we encourage you to comment on below.

Club TFE housekeeping

The first two waves of 2024 Fried Egg Golf events are open to registration. You can register HERE and read more about each event HERE. We’ll have more information about the remainder of our season out this month with the next wave of registrations taking place toward the end of January.

Members are always entitled to 10% off items in our pro shop. Use code CLUBTFEMEMBER to receive that discount.

We are ramping up member gifts again for those who signed up for Club TFE in the back half of last year. Those gifts will begin to ship out in the next few weeks and we will provide another update at that point. We appreciate your patience as we work through that process!

Your weekly question

There are many events, trips, rounds of golf, Super Bowl championship parades (surely the Browns will make it happen, Brendan), and whatnot that we’re looking forward to in the upcoming year. I’ve asked some Fried Egg team members to write about a couple of things they’re excited about in 2024, both in and outside of golf. We also want to hear from you. What’s marked on your calendar? Drop a note in the comments below.

Meg

Golf: The Women’s British Open returns to St. Andrews this summer for the first time since 2013. It has been 11 years since the Old Course hosted the best women golfers in the world, which means that most of the field will be playing competitive golf there for the first time. Watching the women navigate the Old Course in an entirely different way than the men did two years ago will be a treat.

Other: We load up the car every summer for an old-fashioned road trip to the Brainerd Lakes area. Our oldest kids are approaching that sweet-spot age of 8-10 years old, and it’s been a blast seeing them do the exact things I remember from summers when I was a kid—learning to ski, catching fish after fish under the dock, and tubing for all hours of the day. Good, clean summer fun.

Garrett

Golf: Pinehurst—both the resort and the golf-rich surrounding area—may end up a touch overexposed by the end of this year. Still, I’m very much looking forward to seeing Tom Doak and Angela Moser’s work at the new No. 10 course in person and generally sampling the bounty of a region that has a strong claim to the title of the U.S. Home of Golf.

Other: My six-year-old and nine-year-old, who will turn seven and 10 later this year, have started to ask to be taken to the driving range. Fingers crossed that I’ll be able to turn both of them into permanent golf buddies by the time they’re both teenagers.

Cameron

Golf: Finished projects. I’ve been very lucky to get to visit a few large golf construction projects in various stages over the last few years, and I’m looking forward to seeing some of them in a more finished state. I don’t think I’ll get to all of these this year but visiting any would be a treat: Brambles (which I’ve visited the most), Medinah Course 3, Tree Farm (the one day I visited was the very first day they put any sod down), Sedge Valley, and Pinehurst No. 10 (was incredibly lucky to visit it this fall but excited to see how it continues to mature).

Other: Going to the movies. 2023 was actually a pretty great film year for those of us who don’t care about the Marvel Universe. I doubt there will be Barbenheimer-level excitement in 2024, and there appears to be plenty of crap on the docket, but with Dune 2 pushed this year and a Mad Max prequel on the way, I’m hopeful that this year is half as good as last year. More importantly, I’m hoping people continue to head back to the cinema.

Will

Golf: Following a ho-hum re-entry to the games in 2016 and a pandemic-interrupted, fanless edition in 2021, I’m excited to see if golf can gain some real traction at the 2024 Olympic Games. Qualifying on the men’s side may be a bit quirky, though, as the LIV bois won’t have many shots at OWGR points.

Other: My wife and I decided not to do our honeymoon immediately after our wedding in 2023, so we’re really looking forward to that in the back half of the year. To that end, if anyone has any suggestions for activities in either Portugal or Greece feel free to send me a note!