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Yesterday, as FEGC member Pearce Barringer noted in his own forum post, TGL announced that architect Gil Hanse had joined the screen-golf league's roster of hole designers. Accompanying the announcement was an awkward, faintly surreal video of a bemused Hanse making a WWE-like entrance into an empty SoFi Center. I'd love to hear the instructions the director of this piece of content gave him before hitting record.

TGL also unveiled one of Hanse's designs, a 590-yard par 5 called "Stone & Steeple." The hole features a few recognizable Hanse motifs: a threatening boundary wall, a lone bunker guarding the second-shot layup zone, and a rambling "Sahara" bunker, strewn with turf islands, cutting across the fairway. The neighboring graveyard even has precedent in Hanse's body of work: in his renovation of Waverley Country Club in Portland, Oregon, he moved the second green about 50 yards back so that it abutted a 19th-century cemetery.

The most striking aspect of Hanse's design is the double diagonal formed by the two sections of fairway on either side of the Sahara bunker. The basic idea, I gather, is that the farther players hit their drives without carrying the bunker, the more to the right they will end up, and the worse their angle into the green will be. On the other hand, if they want to make the long carry over the bunker on the left side and earn a shorter second shot from a better angle, they will need to bring the wall into play.

Classic strategic-school stuff, in other words. I think I'd enjoy playing this hole, if it were real. And you know what? It basically looks real. And that might be a problem.

So far, the reception of "Stone & Steeple" on social media has been chilly. There seems to be an emerging consensus among TGL viewers that the virtual-hole designs, unconstrained as they are by physical and economic realities, should be crazier, more video game-like, more purely inventive. As my colleague Joseph LaMagna put it on X, "TGL's biggest whiff is designing realistic holes. It makes zero sense to play holes like [Hanse's] in the one arena that's free from practical constraints."

That's probably right. The realism of Hanse's hole registers as a bit unimaginative.

But I have a hard time getting worked up about it because — confession time — I don't really care about TGL. I could barely make it through a single match in the first season. And this is not to say that the product is bad or that the people who enjoy it are rubes. It's just not for me. A huge part of what I love about golf is the relationship between the player, the course, and nature. When you strip away nature — the outdoors, the elements, the land — I lose most of my interest.

But what I'd like to hear Hanse address at some point is why he was interested in TGL. In a press release from the league, he said, "Starting with a relatively blank slate for TGL has been liberating. Designing holes for TGL has given us an opportunity to step out of our comfort zone and step into other aspects of golf course design in the virtual world."

As an architect who typically likes to derive inspiration from physical terrain, why was he compelled by the prospect of a "blank slate"? And in what sense did he stretch beyond his "comfort zone" here?

These are not passive-aggressive questions. I'd genuinely like to hear his answers.

Hey everyone. I thought it would be good to get this going for the NYC area. Always down to get out for a round and occasionally hit the sim in the winter. 31 married w/ no kids

Interested to see what Gil brings to the screen golf. I've only played two of Gil's courses, Sewanee and Mossy Oak, but like everyone, I've seen my fair share on TV and social media. I'd say Gil usually brings their surroundings. Not exactly something you can change and their surroundings. Not exactly something you can implement in TGL.

Side note, is this a sign of things to come for a working partnership with the PGA Tour? I'd love to see Gil get his hands on a course or two. I know TGL and the Tour are separate, but in partnership with one another. One can dream.

https://www.pgatour.com/article/news/tgl/2025/12/2/tgl-announces-gil-hanse-course-designer-season-two-new-holes-architechture

I love sand based turf as much as everyone and understand the agronomy benefits. Who doesn't love blowouts and open/isolated spaces. That being said I kind of wish there would be a few new parkland style courses. Ones not suffocated by trees and housing, not restorations doing a bunch of removal, and not perimeter tree lined places where the trees don't really come into play. Would be interesting to see one of todays top teams have to route the land and trees without bulldozing the lot.

Maybe there are such places that have been built and I'm just not aware of them. (I know Sedge was kind of done this way but is still sand with no trees in play)

Figured it would be interesting to see where the logo ends up over the world. Egg Bowl 2025. Hotty Toddy!

A tradition here at Fried Egg Golf, we posted this year's Content Cornucopia this week, a collection of our favorite pieces of content from others in the industry. Of course, we can only fit so much in there. What else would you all add to the list?

Have the thought of going to a resort outside of London with my family. Would require a high end resort for my family. I dream of playing a round of golf in the morning while my family lounges around the resort and then going to a show in the west end in the evening. Is there such a place that is close enough to the city?

Requirements:

-High end spa/resort

-Enjoyable golf

-Close to city

Planning a trip to Cabot Citrus Farms in March. Anyone have a suggestion for a course near the PIE airport where we can play after a 12:30 arrival and get the round in before dark?

I'm jazzed that I'm getting to play Landmand in Homer, NE in July. Have any of you folks played this season? What are your impressions?

I found the Egg article from 2023 and I THINK I recall it coming up on the pod, but I would love to hear anyone's thoughts...especially after it's had a season to grow in a bit.

I wanted to offer a sincere thanks for a wonderful year, even though it's not quite over yet. I started at Fried Egg Golf last October and, while very excited, was a little unsure what I was stepping into. What I've found has blown me away, and I wanted to share a little gratitude for that.

Everyone I work with is sincere, passionate, and curious—I cannot tell you how much that matters on a daily basis. And on the flip side, everyone I've met who is a member of FEGC has been a delight. It's so fun to have a job where people are excited about what you're doing because it truly brings them happiness. To that end, I wanted to recap a fun year and preview what could be in the future.

This year we built and launched some really fun features:

• A new website (that came along with a very fun process of membership and content migration—thanks to all who patiently stuck with us through a few bumps in the road)
• Major hubs to elevate our coverage of the year's most exciting events
• A member clubhouse to house member articles and a feed of comments
• New category pages for Architecture, Competitive Golf, and Eggstracurriculars
• A new travel planning service
• Travel and region guide articles
• A community forum that has allowed members to chat more freely amongst themselves

I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but when I list them off, I'm pretty happy with the year we've had. Andy and I talk about our product a lot, and one thing we continually focus on is the process. Obviously the output matters, but we remain steadfast in our commitment to continually improve and deliver new and exciting features.

Looking ahead, I'm so excited for what 2026 will bring. It feels like the possibilities are almost endless. From my point of view, I continue to focus on how we can make your days just a little bit brighter by injecting some fun and insightful commentary into your lives (thankfully we have a world-class team of writers, podcasters, video producers, and social media savants to do the real work). To that end, we sincerely focus on bringing a true and earnest point of view and experience that we hope is unique and fresh. In addition to this, I've been so inspired by the community and fun I've witnessed at our events. Will does a tremendous job planning and hosting, and one thing I would like to do is capture a bit more of that magic in our membership's digital community. Obviously we have our forum, but I hope to make some additional strides in this area. Areas that I hope we can improve are our members ability to discover fun and interesting new places to play based on other members’ recommendations as well as continuing to help our members meet, connect, and play together.

If you ever have feedback, please share it with me. I sincerely want to know what we can do to make your golf more enjoyable.

To wrap this up, I want to reiterate how grateful I am for all of you. You truly allow us (and me) to do something we love. Cheers to a happy and safe holiday season!

Howdy folks. One of the goals of our community is to get members together on golf courses, enjoying each other's company and exploring new courses or revisiting tried-and-true favorites. To that end, I've created a new forum topic dedicated to housing playing opportunities: Filling Foursomes. We will greatly improve the process of posting playing opportunities and finding partners in our product over the long haul, but for now I hope this minimal change can help bring a little structure to the forum if you're trying to find a game.

As for posting in Filling Foursomes, please just be clear about when and where the tee time is and if there are any booking considerations (e.g., cancellations within 24 hours may incur a fee from the course). Additionally, I believe that everyone in our community always has the best intentions, but I'll state the obvious: this is not a place to resell or mark up tee times for a profit.

Cheers!

Candyroot Lodge, a new public golf facility in the sand hills outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, marked the end of its first week of construction with an Instagram post. Mike Koprowski, who collaborated with Kyle Franz at Broomsedge Golf Club and joined Andy Johnson on the Fried Egg Golf Podcast last year, is designing Candyroot's first course.

Initially, Koprowski was engaged by Candyroot's owners to build a single course, tentatively named Downbonnie. Since announcing that venture in May, however, the owners have brought on additional investors and developed bigger ambitions. Koprowski now tells me that Candyroot will feature multiple regulation layouts (three or four), plus a short course. An architect has not yet been selected for the second course, but interviews are ongoing.

If Candyroot Lodge follows through on its plans, it would be one of the largest and most exciting public-golf projects of the 2020s undertaken by developers not named Keiser.

Here are three recently announced renovation projects that caught my eye:

Todd Eckenrode is restoring William P. Bell's mid-1920s design at Annandale Golf Club in Pasadena, California. Annandale has good potential (the historical aerials are tantalizing, but sadly not much can be done to bring back the property's former vistas and openness), and Eckenrode knows Bell and California Golden Age architecture as well as anyone in the industry. This is a project to track.

Trey Kemp, a very capable Dallas-based golf architect, has started the first phase of his master plan for Hogan Park Golf Course, a 36-hole municipal facility in Midland, Texas. Hogan Park is an important hub of the game in the growing but somewhat golf-poor Midland-Odessa region. Over the past decade, Kemp has developed a specialty in reviving municipal courses in Texas. His work at Stevens Park and Rockwood Park in the Dallas-Fort Worth area has been especially well received.

Architect Nick Campanelli and influential golf writer Bradley Klein have been engaged to renovate Willie Park Jr.'s design at Shuttle Meadow Country Club outside of Hartford, Connecticut. Campanelli and Klein plan to adapt some ideas from Huntercombe Golf Club, Park's strange masterwork in the English heathlands. Golf Course Architecture has a thorough writeup on the project.

Every once in a while when i run out of pods to listen to i throw on an SGS episode from a handful of years back. Commentary is hilarious and it’s interesting hearing the state of golf then and seeing how much it’s changed. I noticed on Apple Podcasts that there are no episodes pre June of 2019, are those available anywhere or are they the lost pods?

Jeeno's pile of cash got a whole lot bigger this weekend. She's never finished outside the top 10 at Tiburon, so there's a good chance she just keeps on cashing big checks there for the foreseeable future. I'm not sure what I find harder to believe....Nelly going winless this year or Jeeno still not having a major. Plenty of great moments from this year, but overall, what a strange season. What stands out to everyone as the moment of the year?