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When talking about my favorite golf courses I often describe them as being quirky. Two of my very favorite courses on earth are National Golf Links and Merion East, both of which I feel feature some real quirk. Both of these courses are from the teens and have a bit of a vernacular design quality to them. In other words, there really wasn't an established template (for lack of a better word) for what constituted acceptable or "normal" design features at that time. The Old Course has informed golf course architecture more than any other golf course, and I would be hard pressed to think of a more quirky collection of golf holes. There are many other examples of great golf courses that are also quirky, North Berwick for example. I'm sure that you, if you think about golf course architecture could cite your own examples.

I value quirk so much that I've often tried to think about it as a fourth principle of design. Strategic, Heroic, Penal, and Quirky. But can quirky really be designed, and if it is, does it come across as inauthentic? I don't necessarily think so, I think the 7th at Ballyneal is a tremendously fun golf hole that is quirky as hell, but doesn't feel like a party trick. But I can see that a modern golf course design trying to get too cute, or lean into quirk too much could elicit scorn from a lot of players. So I ask you, could quirkiness be a design principle or is it merely a byproduct of unique landforms or features that the routing is required to play over or around? It certainly feels more prevalent in older golf courses, but I'd welcome further examples of modern quirky designs; Ones that you feel pursue the goal successfully or even ones that you feel were less successful in it.

https://www.thefriedegg.com/articles/in-praise-of-the-golf-buddy

I wrote this because it feels like we don't talk enough about the therapeutic benefits of golf, and how you really don't need a great course or a great score as long as you have a good person with you.

It also felt like a good discussion post: When was a time a Golf Buddy lifted you up?

You can share here or shoot me a note at kvv@thefriedegg.com

I think the way we discuss and approach the idea of penal and strategic as a binary needs improvement. As it creates a reductive discussion seeking a binary answer to a non-binary problem.

As it’s clearly evident in every great both strategic or penal hole, all have a clear penal hazard or strongly directive contours that direct a lead one or multiple lines of play.

If we believe this last statement to be true, then we must accept a non-binary application of the terminology. This scale is a work in progress and is presented with an interest in discussion of not only the concept but the definitions and how best to apply it to features, holes, and golf courses.

The 0 is reserved for golf essentially as impossible or inconsequential.

The 1 is the golden goose. We haven’t been able to define or find a purely strategic hole without a clear penalty. They either are a bit too penal to be a 1 or they are so ineffective that it creates a 0. So 1 and the definition of strategy are open for debate.

(?)

7 is much clearer as that’s the point of penal golf. The most recent perfect example was 18 at Bethpage with the flanking bunkers on the drive and the uphill cross-bunkered approach.

Excited to hear and see the discussion. Remember this is a tool for discussing and cataloging golf not a value judgement on the hole or its quality. (Please find a way to add photos to comments; this thread needs it).

OCM has my attention. Their original US work is only beginning to come on line at Fall Line and Luling, though not too many will have played them yet. But early images suggest a possible new flavor for where architecture and design can be heading. I sense a middle ground between, say, the camps of Doak and Coore & Crenshaw compared to perhaps King and Collins, Franz, or Jackson Khan. Something maybe closer to Scott Hoffman, though I haven't seen his work yet.

My initial reaction to OCM is that their work is rooted in a naturalism that doesn't err too far into universal playability. A naturalism with teeth. There's width and angles, but moments of constriction, then approaches and green complexes that visually appear more exacting than perhaps what's been produced at many Dream Golf types of examples in recent years.

As an example, Tepetonka provided a flyover of their entire routing on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQxDCcckYaz/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

It looks quite good to me. Big, broad land with significant slope. Like it could almost be a midwestern skiing area, but with likely less elevation. Par 4s and 5s are often routed over grand scaled corridors, and the par 3s are nestled into amphitheaters of trees. The land has some deeper ravines from glacier retreat, and a good-sized creek comes close to a few greens.

Initial comparison might be something like High Pointe meets CapRock Ranch? No doubt good courses to be in conversation with.

Some notes I made from the flyover:

The routing seems very compelling. There may be a couple moments of directional back and forth, and the creek system seems to have a pattern of guarding the front and left side of greens/holes. But the par 3s appear in beautiful spots and both the opening and closing holes appear very strong.

1 is a big bold par 5 with a elevated forced carry tee shot--a theme that appears on a handful of holes.

3 is a lovely par 3 downhill over the creek.

4, a par 4, looks to have severe slope right to left with bunkers lining the left side to ostensibly save balls from tumbling into the woods. Then it also has an imposing looking green complex with massive bunkers.

6 has a beautiful natural green site.

8 again strikes a balance of beauty and perceived challenge. Long par 5 with what looks like a perimeter running along entire right hand side.

11! Hogs back potentially drivable par 4 with deflecting slopes falling on both sides the closer you get to the green. Great risk and reward, but with real teeth!

12 another intimate par 3 situated in cedars.

14! Shorter par 5 but with the creek heavily guarding the green.

15! Stunning par 3 guarded by creek left and bunkers right.

16 bunkerless maybe for the entire hole. Expansive forced carry over wetlands or bog (?) with a walking/cart bridge. Elevated green.

Wasn't sure whether to title the thread Tepetonka or OCM more generally. Happy to hear thoughts on both course and the architects.

We're kicking around this idea internally and are interested to see who would be inclined to participate? To be determined how often the club meets but we would love to see how many people would like to jump in. Consider it a club that discusses golf books and golf-adjacent books

Must-watch stuff from Pablo Torre this morning on golf's "hyest flyer."

A lot of receipts presented, showing Phil Mickelson's links with a troubled energy company begging to be bailed out by the White House.

You know the content is good because Phil is already threatening to sue random Twitter accounts that engage with it.

This is a topic that could be controversial, and I don't mean for it to be, I'm just genuinely curious...

I attended a Fried Egg Golf event at Lancaster Country Club in (I want to say) 2021. The event featured 2 rounds of golf, lunch, a tee prize, and prizes for the winners. I believe the entry cost was around $425. I might not be exact on those numbers, but it was close to that. It was a great day out there (despite the greens being dialed up to US Open conditions). Now I can't help but thinking that this same event, with those same inclusions would probably come in at $899 and feature a waitlist.

I don't mean this as an attack on the Fried Egg at all, in my local area last month there was an event by another group at Aronimink that was $1200+ for a one day event. The list of golf courses I'd pay $1200 to play is very short, but that's fine, I don't have to pay it and there are many people who were willing to do so. But it really got me thinking, what happened in the last 5 years that has caused these events more than double in price? Did I just catch it in the early days of these events when clubs and organizations were trying to figure out how much these things should cost? Have the clubs decided that they are going to jack up their prices and the resulting entry fees have skyrocketed? Or is this honestly a case of just trying to find the ceiling? I don't blame Fried Egg Golf or anyone trying to make a profit on these events, and as I said earlier, there's a waitlist for many of these events so why leave money on the table?

Again, not an attack on anyone or anything. I can't be the only one who looks at the cost of some of these events and is surprised at how much they've increased.

We’re down to the final four! Check out our full FEGC Design Contest Review with Andy Staples and vote on which hole you think should be built at Breezy Point.

Full Review and Finalist Details

Curious if following can be possible:

• following specific people and being alerted when they start a thread or comment on one.
• receiving alerts for when someone responds to your own comments (similar to earlier version of the club website).

Thanks!

As we wind down the season here in Philadelphia (only 10 more days to post rounds) I started to take stock of the year I had, where I played, and what my favorites were. In the interest of getting some conversations started on this burgeoning new board, I thought I’d ask: What did you check off the list in 2025 that really stuck with you? What made it special? Insider information on it? Feel free to post specific holes or design details.

I have a few, but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t shouting into the void before I posted them.

Clyde Johnson has restored the Himalayas bunker at St. Enodoc Golf Club in southwestern England to something resembling its vintage form. (Hire this man to work on more GB&I links courses, please.)

OCM Golf teased an "exciting 36-hole project on some amazing land." The property includes "streams, lakes, rocks, and undulation." Work will begin in early 2026, "once the snow melts!" We at Fried Egg Golf have it on good authority that this facility will be north of Toronto, sitting on 850 acres.

OCM Golf has broken ground on a new short course for Royal Queensland Golf Club in Brisbane.

Scot Sherman, lead architect at Love Golf Design, will restore Donald Ross and Walter Travis features at Camden Country Club in South Carolina. I've heard great things about this course.

Quintero Golf Club in Peoria, Arizona, is back in business after a major renovation (involving the trucking in of "Augusta white sand") by Rees Jones.

Palma Ceia Golf and Country Club in Tampa has wrapped up the second phase of a renovation with architect Bobby Weed. The club claims to have restored its "1916 Tom Bendelow and Donald Ross design," but I have some follow-ups about historical accuracy.

Dave Zinkand shared a few photos of his new reversible course at Medina Country Club in Ohio.

Tyler Rae's frilly (somewhat fussy, to my eye?) new bunkers at Ansley Golf Club in suburban Atlanta debuted last week.

Gray Carlton posted some new footage of Brian Schneider's renovation at Silver Spring Country Club in Connecticut.

Clayton, DeVries & Pont offer an update on partner Frant Pont's bunker work at Harry Colt's Whittington Heath. Brian Schneider chimed in with a pointed reply.

CDP are also moving dirt around at Portsea Golf Club, a charming course on the tip of the Mornington Peninsula.

As part of its overhaul of the Robert Trent Jones-designed Patterson Club, Proper Golf is building a green based on No. 4 at Spyglass Hill.

More footage from Proper Golf's work at The Patterson Club.

More bunker-tainment from Mike Nuzzo's redesign of Club Walden in Ohio.

Kawonu Golf Club, a new build by Andrew Green near Greenville, South Carolina, has shown quite a sophisticated and assertive marketing muscle.

Friend of the program Will Watt took some good-looking photos of Mike Clayton and Mike DeVries's new course in Tasmania, 7 Mile Beach, which opens for 18-hole play on December 4.

Back on October 24, Sugarloaf Social Club posted footage of the Great Dunes at Jekyll Island, a Walter Travis course recently resto-vated by Jeff Stein and Brian Ross.

The Lodge at Pebble Beach has reopened after an extensive renovation.

Golf Course Architecture has a story on Faldo Design's new course in Qiddiya City, Saudi Arabia. Funded by the Kingdom's Public Investment Fund (the same source of support behind LIV Golf), Qiddiya is a planned entertainment and tourism capital located in the raw desert outside of Riyadh. In addition to a Nick Faldo-designed golf course, the city will boast a Formula 1-quality race track, a Six Flags theme park, and a Dragon Ball theme park—whatever that might be.

The Kingdom's effort to attract international tourists to attractions like Qiddiya City—and its associated golf offerings—is the real reason LIV Golf exists, by the way. And will likely continue to exist until Saudi Arabia's "Vision 2030" program starts to produce results.

This video about Faldo's course, posted on the "Sir Nick Faldo" YouTube channel, is full of exactly the kind of unintentional comedy that can help get us through hard, weird times.

For Golf dot com, Alan Bastable has all the details that are fit to print on this strange story.

The facts:

• A large pile of rubble has recently appeared on the property of East Potomac Golf Links, a 1920s Walter Travis course owned by the National Park Service and operated by the National Links Trust.
• The dirt is coming from the White House, where, in the midst of a government shutdown, the Trump administration is carrying out a $300-million renovation project. This project includes the construction of a now-infamous state ballroom.
• The Washington Post, which first reported the story, noted that the rubble will be used to "add mounding" at East Potomac.
• The National Links Trust has redirected all press inquiries to the Department of the Interior, and the Department of the Interior has not commented on the matter.

A few observations and speculations:

• When the National Links Trust vied for and won the lease to operate East Potomac in 2019 and 2020, it declared an intention to restore the course to its original, reversible design, with the help of architect Tom Doak. So far, those plans have not come to fruition. More recently, The Independent reported that President Trump "is weighing [a] refurbishment and rebranding" of the course in the image of his family's golf properties in New Jersey and Scotland.
• Is the delivery of fill from the White House an indication that some sort of East Potomac renovation is underway? Unlikely. Bringing in dirt is rarely the first step of a golf course construction project.
• Sources tell Fried Egg Golf that the construction company in charge of the rubble delivery, Clark Construction, insists that the material is not toxic.
• This is a big mess. And dumb.

Wild Spring Dunes, an under-construction Dream Golf resort in East Texas, will hold a soft opening on November 12, with eight holes of Tom Doak’s new 18-hole design available for play. Doak had this to say about the course on Instagram: “What’s the best public course in Texas? The first 18 holes at Wild Springs Dunes [have] come a long way since I last saw it in July without a blade of grass being planted, to playing 18 holes the last two days with lead associate Brian Slawnik, our client Michael Keiser, and his crew from Dream Golf.” The resort also posted some Jeff Marsh photographs of the course on its website.

The second course at Wild Spring Dunes, designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, has been routed, and clearing is underway. The resort’s lodging component is expected to debut in 2027.

32, married with child, zero interest in fighting, always interested in making new pals.