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Hello all,

I mentioned this in our Sunday email this week, but we have a fresh slate of new events we are excited to unveil for fall of this year. Details for our Brambles, Wild Spring Dunes, and Louisiana trips will be announced next week, but today I want to quickly talk about our new Minnesota Road Trip. This is a Donald Ross special, featuring four amazing designs that are all exceedingly different.

Dates: September 20-24, 2026

Registration: May 20, 2026 at Noon ET - Registration Page

Courses: Northland Country Club, White Bear Yacht Club, Woodhill Country Club, and Minneapolis Golf Club

Background:

We hosted a Minneapolis trip last fall and decided the area needed more attention. So this year, we put together a variation of our 2025 trip and spiced it up with more Donald Ross focus.

White Bear Yacht Club is one of my favorite places in the country, so I started there. It's an amazing golf course with some wild topography and the dinner we are able to host in their Commodore Room is out of this world. Tuesday, done.

Then, I looked around at what other Ross courses we hadn't seen in Minneapolis and settled on Minneapolis Golf Club. Located just west of town, MGC is overlooked because of its Interlachen and Hazeltine shaped neighbors but it offers some terrific architecture and some great Ross greens. Boom, Thursday, done.

While searching around the west side of town, I noticed Woodhill Country Club, a Ross design that I knew very little about. Sure enough, Brian Schneider was doing work on the club and they are reopening after a full restoration. Brian has done some amazing work in recent years and the opportunity to see a new one of his restoration projects tickled my fancy. Wednesday, done.

Finally, there has always been a calling to make the trip up to Duluth to see Northland Country Club. According to many people I trust, it is an amazing place with equally wild topography to White Bear and even better views. Overlooking Lake Superior, this is an amazing venue that very few have made the trip to see. For Ross enthusiasts, or really just golf enthusiasts, this felt like a place we needed to see. So that goes Monday to begin the trip.

All together, this is four days of some amazing golf course architecture featuring Ross in different stages of his career, and the current courses are in different stages of their lives as well. Some are coming off fresh restorations, others are working on long-term projects, and others still are as pure as they were the day they opened. It's a trip I am exceptionally excited to embark on and I cannot wait for the group to join in.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Are there any folks who are into course architecture who don’t support ball or equipment rollback? For me I don’t really understand the point. This “ issue” ( if we can even accept there is one, which I’m not sure exists in the first place), solely affects elite amateurs and professionals I have never once heard an amateur golf say the ball goes too far or that golf is too easy.

As some background, I’m a +2 handicap who plays in a lot of tournaments. I hit it roughly 300. I receive 0 dollars from Titleist and currently play a TP5 golf ball. To me, golf is about the lowest score winning, which remains true if an event is played from 6000 yards or 9000 yards.

Spent a couple days in Winter Park watching Rhebb & Johns rebuild greens and bunkers after the recent loss of their greens. Greens look incredible. They’ll go with temp greens for most of the summer. Will be a must play after grow in.

A coworker came into my office just now and asked what podcast I was listening to. He expressed he is interested and wants to start listening himself. This prompted me to search for SGS funniest moments and I can't find a list or almanac of the biggest laughs or bits. I thought it would be great to compile such a list within the confines of TFEGC.

With that, hit me with your favorite moments and funniest pods (timestamps would be extremely helpful too).

I'll start

Ashley Madison?:

https://youtu.be/47M5gXsas_I?si=eaXKEuS27mAmT6Zj&t=609

Myself and a fellow FEGC member who is in town for the weekend have a foursome at Golden Gate Park booked for next week. We currently have two open slots if anyone is interested.

Golden Gate Park 5/14 @ 2:48pm

I loved the discussion about evaluating pro games and thinking about prospects. Mike Leach’s perspective on this years ago always intrigued me. He had so much success finding quarterbacks when he coached at schools that weren’t headliners. So much of that he attributed to focusing on guys who had standout completion rates, believing he could teach them systems or that they could develop other skills, but that the ability to constantly complete passes was almost an intrinsic skill.

My mind immediately went to this during the point about certain players’ ability to always get the ball in the hole. Did Brian Harman’s career peak as high as ? No, but he won the US Junior Am, played on two Walker Cups, and here we are - he’s had a very nice pro career having won a major, finished runner up in another, and won 3 other tournaments on the tour.

I'll be in Macon for a conference in early June. There's a day where I'll be done with meetings early and have the afternoon to myself which I'll use to get a round in. My initial search on Google Maps for best places to play around there didn't yield many inspiring results, so I thought I'd seek input here. Where should I try to play? Not looking to drive anymore than 1 hour outside of Macon.

I wanted to pass along some unfortunate news about Winter Park 9. The course closed temporarily on April 27 after a maintenance worker sprayed greens with the wrong chemical. This caused irreparable damage to 5 greens. The course is supposed to re-open in a couple of weeks with temporary greens with a full re-opening planned for July. In the meantime, the greens will be resurfaced. I last played the course on March 22 and the greens were in good shape as the course was prepping for its annual City Am the first weekend of May. The tournament has been postponed until October. This comes about a decade after the highly successful renovation by Keith Rhebb and Riley Johns.

I’m including a photo of the 6th green, taken by a friend on April 17. I’ll also include the link to a local news story about this.

I live an hour from the course and it’s my favorite place to play. Naturally I hope all of the work on the greens goes as planned and the course returns to its stellar form.

https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/winter-park-golf-course-shut-down-after-chemical-mistake-damages-greens?link_source=ta_first_comment&taid=69fb426d3d68e800011b4a3b&fbclid=IwdGRleARo0BZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEeswNgS3ZJemecrlxEjUk4WFKOC71jT_zezQL4u8V13VZ0_lP4hyNyocq0Ul8_aem_v6BT_y_MytksHRultsxpSQ

Hey folks - wondering if anyone has golf instructor recommendations in or around the Chicago north shore. This is my first season in the area, so hoping to find someone to stick with long-term. Decent player, but don’t feel like I have a good plan for my swing. Thanks!

Yes, that is a bit of a click-bait type title, but is a thought that ran through my head on the flight back from my recent trip to the Pinehurst area.

I went to the Pinehurst resort on a work boondoggle back in 2011 when I first started playing golf, so my memories and impressions are very different than if I went to the resort for the first time today. And while I didn't play any golf at the resort on this trip, we did go over to get dinner on our arrival day. I recognize that the 2hours I spent on property is not a fair judgement, but it struck me as more of an obnoxious party boy crowd than I remembered.

We did play golf at mid pines/southern pines/pine needles, and also had dinner at Pine Needles on our last night. The atmosphere couldn't be more different, and I couldn't have loved it any more. Maybe that's also not a fair judgement since the mid-pines hotel is closed for renovations.

That's not to say I didn't encounter any idiots at these properties. One particular fellow was trying to find a path to the green on #10 at Southern Pines from down by #11 tee, hit at least his 3rd tree of the hole with his half-orange-half-green ball, and was having a full mental breakdown while walking towards his ball now located in front of 12 tee. The only words out of his mouth I understood were "I PAID $300 FOR DIRT AND PINE STRAW!"

But I've head this type of observation before, particularly about Sand Valley, and as I work on planning the next group trip I have to wonder if golf has become so popular in the last 5 years that all the big golf resorts that make golf trips easy have been overrun by the backwards hat, untucked bad-birdie shirt, transfusion drinking putz?

Do I now have to look overseas to avoid all the riff-raff? Am I being a gatekeeping elitist putz myself?

My buddy and I will be in the Twin Cities on 6/16 and have an open afternoon for a round. I’ve done a fair amount of research, but with how many great public options there are, I figured I’d ask here for some help prioritizing.

Right now, it seems like Keller and Braemar are two of the top municipal options. I’ve also heard great things about Chaska Town Course, Rush Creek, Baker National, Legends, and Stoneridge.

If you had one afternoon and could only pick one, what would you prioritize and why?

As I type this, the temperature has dropped to single digits again in Brantford. It is raining...again. And, shows almost no sign of good weather for the week at all.

However, good weather is surely ahead at some point. It has to be! So I would like to propose a spring meet-up somewhere in Southern Ontario. We have plenty of public options out there and I would be happy to try and arrange a round of golf for a group.

Maybe something in early June? This gives time for planning, trying to find an accomodating golf course who will allow us to book outside there reservation window and get a group together. Whether it is 4, 8 or 24, lets try to get something on the books.

I have had a few "society" members come play at Copetown Woods several time, as it is my local club and Barry is the best at helping with tee times. While not a member at Brantford, they have been happy to host before but more reluctant as of the past year or so. I am open to suggestions. Lets get something on the books!

This came up on Monday's SGS episode, and it's been a semi-recurring talking point. While I tend to agree with Andy's point that the schedule feels too compressed and the May PGA has squeezed some traditionally strong spring Tour events (e.g. Memorial, Charlotte). But it's worth remembering that the PGA moved to May because golf became an Olympic sport. Things get pretty compressed in the summer if the PGA moves back to August, and that would only be exacerbated with the addition of the mixed event to Olympic golf.

If we want to "de-compress" the schedule between the Masters and U.S. Open, which semi-realistic option(s) would work best?

It doesn't seem like there's any appetite at the Tour to extend the schedule back into the NFL season (which I kind of miss, but you had Tiger and Phil routinely skipping the Tour Championship in its last few years with an October date). So if the tour still wants an August finish, I don't see how you can cram the PGA in there, particularly in Olympic years (and I don't think moving the PGA around the calendar during Olympic years is going to do much for it's major credibility).

Personally, I'd like August/early September to be a sleepier time in the schedule. A lot of people tend to be on vacation anyway; could kind of function like the F1 summer break, except here it'd be a time for the mules to harvest some FedEx points, That could be followed by a brief ramp up where guys get a rep or two in before the Ryder/P Cups. It also potentially makes room for a lull for the post-Masters hangover.

Golf season is officially underway across the country. Where are you looking forward to playing this summer? Somewhere new or somewhere you are returning? Perhaps a long awaited trip or an invite to a special place.

For me, June brings my annual buddies (16 of us) trip where the 54 holes of golf is less of note, but the comradery and general debauchery makes for one of the best weekends of the year. Followed a week later by my first FE event at Prairie Dunes and then an always special round at Chicago GC.

What excites you about the season ahead?