We have a rather big Augusta National project in the works ahead of this year's event and we could use your help. We are looking for the most memorable shots — good or bad — from each individual hole at Augusta National. Some are obvious, but if you have submissions (especially pre-2000) we are all ears. Feel free to drop them here!
We have a rather big Augusta National project in the works ahead of this year's event and we could use your help. We are looking for the most memorable shots — good or bad — from each individual hole at Augusta National. Some are obvious, but if you have submissions (especially pre-2000) we are all ears. Feel free to drop them here!
Hey all, we're super excited to release a video project we've been working on for over two years next Monday on YouTube. The video will dive into the history of Crooked Stick over the years, it's significance to Pete and Alice Dye and the most recent restoration work. We were able to talk with several people who worked directly for the Dyes as well as the Crooked Stick Historian who spent many years with the Dye's writing a book about them.
While the most recent restoration targeted more infrastructural upgrades and revival of some lost features, the origin story is quite fascinating and one that I don't think a lot of people know about. Crooked Stick is truly one-of-one in the Pete Dye portfolio as it was the brain child of Pete and Alice. They raised the money, bought the land and built their ideal golf course for themselves and their friends in and around Indianapolis.
I'm really excited to release this video but I'm also curious peoples thoughts who have played the course before? What were your impressions? For me it took a few visits to sort of "get it". It's more subdued that most of Dye's work but there's some incredible architecture out there.
Check out the Fried Egg Golf YouTube channel on Monday and enjoy the PLAYERS this weekend
Hey all, we're super excited to release a video project we've been working on for over two years next Monday on YouTube. The video will dive into the history of Crooked Stick over the years, it's significance to Pete and Alice Dye and the most recent restoration work. We were able to talk with several people who worked directly for the Dyes as well as the Crooked Stick Historian who spent many years with the Dye's writing a book about them.
While the most recent restoration targeted more infrastructural upgrades and revival of some lost features, the origin story is quite fascinating and one that I don't think a lot of people know about. Crooked Stick is truly one-of-one in the Pete Dye portfolio as it was the brain child of Pete and Alice. They raised the money, bought the land and built their ideal golf course for themselves and their friends in and around Indianapolis.
I'm really excited to release this video but I'm also curious peoples thoughts who have played the course before? What were your impressions? For me it took a few visits to sort of "get it". It's more subdued that most of Dye's work but there's some incredible architecture out there.
Check out the Fried Egg Golf YouTube channel on Monday and enjoy the PLAYERS this weekend
Going to head out to EP Friday morning and have a foursome at 820am. Looking to fill two spots if anyone is interested. Weather currently looks not as awesome as today, but going to brave it anyway!
Going to head out to EP Friday morning and have a foursome at 820am. Looking to fill two spots if anyone is interested. Weather currently looks not as awesome as today, but going to brave it anyway!
A big goal of ours in 2026 is to offer up localized meetup opportunities for our membership that don't require travel to one of our events. I'm writing to you on this beautiful Monday with one of those opportunities.
This spring, we are working with Intown Golf Club to bring together Fried Egg Golf Club members around the country. Intown offers upscale locations with simulators and great food & beverage options. You typically have to be an Intown member to access their facilities, but we are excited to off that access to you all simply for being FEGC members.
To kick off the year, we have set up four meetups in areas around the Midwest and East Coast for you to get some swings in, meet fellow FEGC members in your area, and help get the golf season kicked off in style. Those meetups will be:
If you are interested in joining, please respond here or shoot me an email! We will finalize payments in the coming weeks. We do need to have final totals for each event by 7 days out of each event so the Nashville deadline is coming up very soon. Hope you all can join in!
A big goal of ours in 2026 is to offer up localized meetup opportunities for our membership that don't require travel to one of our events. I'm writing to you on this beautiful Monday with one of those opportunities.
This spring, we are working with Intown Golf Club to bring together Fried Egg Golf Club members around the country. Intown offers upscale locations with simulators and great food & beverage options. You typically have to be an Intown member to access their facilities, but we are excited to off that access to you all simply for being FEGC members.
To kick off the year, we have set up four meetups in areas around the Midwest and East Coast for you to get some swings in, meet fellow FEGC members in your area, and help get the golf season kicked off in style. Those meetups will be:
If you are interested in joining, please respond here or shoot me an email! We will finalize payments in the coming weeks. We do need to have final totals for each event by 7 days out of each event so the Nashville deadline is coming up very soon. Hope you all can join in!
Picking up the thread that started here, I want to kick off a formal community lead project to map out the definitive golf architecture lineage tree.
You know how football nerds love tracing NFL head coaching trees? How everyone is a Bill Walsh guy or a Bill Parcells guy, and you can draw a line from one coach to half the league? Golf architecture has the same thing, maybe better, and we're going to build the coolest, most comprehensive version of it that exists. But I need your help.
I'll build out (I've actually already most built it out 😉) the front-end and back-end to display and manage the data. And in return I'm asking for help from the FEGC community to do the fun part: the research.
Here's what I need:
Architect bios — a sentence or two (or more if you're feeling it) on who each person was, what they're known for, and what made their work distinctive. Nothing encyclopedic, just enough to anchor readers in who the architect was.
Relationships — this is the core of the project. Things like:
Was an associate/employee of X
Was a partner of Y
Collaborated with Z
If you're interested let me know and I'll throw a meeting on the books for later this week to chat about what I'd need to make this happen and how you can contribute.
Picking up the thread that started here, I want to kick off a formal community lead project to map out the definitive golf architecture lineage tree.
You know how football nerds love tracing NFL head coaching trees? How everyone is a Bill Walsh guy or a Bill Parcells guy, and you can draw a line from one coach to half the league? Golf architecture has the same thing, maybe better, and we're going to build the coolest, most comprehensive version of it that exists. But I need your help.
I'll build out (I've actually already most built it out 😉) the front-end and back-end to display and manage the data. And in return I'm asking for help from the FEGC community to do the fun part: the research.
Here's what I need:
Architect bios — a sentence or two (or more if you're feeling it) on who each person was, what they're known for, and what made their work distinctive. Nothing encyclopedic, just enough to anchor readers in who the architect was.
Relationships — this is the core of the project. Things like:
Was an associate/employee of X
Was a partner of Y
Collaborated with Z
If you're interested let me know and I'll throw a meeting on the books for later this week to chat about what I'd need to make this happen and how you can contribute.
My cousin and I are attending the FEGC Prairie Dunes event this summer and couldn't be more excited. We're starting to consider travel plans and will probably fly into either Wichita or Kansas City the day before and wondering if anyone has any recs for interesting golf in either of those areas or en route to Hutchinson.
I was considering a round at Swope Memorial in KC the day before the event, but the most recent update I see suggests they are targeting a July reopening after last year's renovation work. Any recommendations would be appreciated.
My cousin and I are attending the FEGC Prairie Dunes event this summer and couldn't be more excited. We're starting to consider travel plans and will probably fly into either Wichita or Kansas City the day before and wondering if anyone has any recs for interesting golf in either of those areas or en route to Hutchinson.
I was considering a round at Swope Memorial in KC the day before the event, but the most recent update I see suggests they are targeting a July reopening after last year's renovation work. Any recommendations would be appreciated.
This might be a stupid question, but I'm going to ask because I don't know answer.
Re Brian Rolapp's scarcity plan, why does he believe that is the path to previously unrealized financial benefits and a higher profile for the Tour?
The Tour may save operational money by eliminating tournaments but it seems to me its TV contracts are based on the abundance Rolapp wants to eliminate. The Cognizant might not attract a great field, but it did attract 2.5 million viewers for NBC. That's a number networks will pay real money for, especially in this day and age.
I'm skeptical that only playing 27 tournaments (give or take a few) is suddenly going to lead to dramatically higher TV audiences and rights fees for the tour.
This might be a stupid question, but I'm going to ask because I don't know answer.
Re Brian Rolapp's scarcity plan, why does he believe that is the path to previously unrealized financial benefits and a higher profile for the Tour?
The Tour may save operational money by eliminating tournaments but it seems to me its TV contracts are based on the abundance Rolapp wants to eliminate. The Cognizant might not attract a great field, but it did attract 2.5 million viewers for NBC. That's a number networks will pay real money for, especially in this day and age.
I'm skeptical that only playing 27 tournaments (give or take a few) is suddenly going to lead to dramatically higher TV audiences and rights fees for the tour.
Getting ahead of this before next week. I have lived here 17 years and do not remember drought conditions this bad. Over/under 2.5 rounds with preferred lies despite historic drought.
Getting ahead of this before next week. I have lived here 17 years and do not remember drought conditions this bad. Over/under 2.5 rounds with preferred lies despite historic drought.
Yesterday, Cameron and I went to check out the completed renovation work at Maggie Hathaway in Los Angeles. Neither of us had played the course before the project but we were both extremely impressed with what we saw. Tommy Naccarato, a longtime collaborator of Gil Hanse (who's firm waived their design fee) was onsite for the entire project and his passion for the work is evident in ground (he's calling it little LACC South). It's definitely one of the best sets of greens anyone can play for $9. The grand opening is March 27th and Garrett Morrison will have more on this project in next week's Design Notebook!
Yesterday, Cameron and I went to check out the completed renovation work at Maggie Hathaway in Los Angeles. Neither of us had played the course before the project but we were both extremely impressed with what we saw. Tommy Naccarato, a longtime collaborator of Gil Hanse (who's firm waived their design fee) was onsite for the entire project and his passion for the work is evident in ground (he's calling it little LACC South). It's definitely one of the best sets of greens anyone can play for $9. The grand opening is March 27th and Garrett Morrison will have more on this project in next week's Design Notebook!
The venerable Zach Anderson and I are meeting up at Pine Needles this coming Wednesday to play the course for the first time for both of us. We have room for 1 more and would love to get a fellow egghead out with the group if anyone is interested! Feel free to shoot a text to 717-215-0976 if interested!
The venerable Zach Anderson and I are meeting up at Pine Needles this coming Wednesday to play the course for the first time for both of us. We have room for 1 more and would love to get a fellow egghead out with the group if anyone is interested! Feel free to shoot a text to 717-215-0976 if interested!
My fiancee is really into needlepoint, and makes me custom needlepoint belts (which always turn out amazing, I feel so grateful!). However, she sends them out to get "finalized" (leather / belt attached) and we have had issues with the quality of the leather, ie. the leather dye often bleeds when sweating / during rain.
Does anyone have recommendations / experience on where we can send our next belt to a finishing service with high quality leather? Can you send a custom canvas to Smathers or another brand?
My fiancee is really into needlepoint, and makes me custom needlepoint belts (which always turn out amazing, I feel so grateful!). However, she sends them out to get "finalized" (leather / belt attached) and we have had issues with the quality of the leather, ie. the leather dye often bleeds when sweating / during rain.
Does anyone have recommendations / experience on where we can send our next belt to a finishing service with high quality leather? Can you send a custom canvas to Smathers or another brand?
From today's SGS, via Michael Wolf aka BamaBearcat:
Masters Fun Fact: Augusta National almost had a 15 story tall radio tower on the property. Before Bobby Jones acquired the Berkman family estate, the property was briefly owned by Perry Stoltz. Stoltz was in the process of developing a string of resorts across the SE United States when he acquired the Augusta land. Each resort would have included a golf course and 15 story hotel with a large radio tower on top. Stoltz’s plan was to link together the towers at each resort to create one of the countries first radio networks.
From today's SGS, via Michael Wolf aka BamaBearcat:
Masters Fun Fact: Augusta National almost had a 15 story tall radio tower on the property. Before Bobby Jones acquired the Berkman family estate, the property was briefly owned by Perry Stoltz. Stoltz was in the process of developing a string of resorts across the SE United States when he acquired the Augusta land. Each resort would have included a golf course and 15 story hotel with a large radio tower on top. Stoltz’s plan was to link together the towers at each resort to create one of the countries first radio networks.
Would love to hear your 10-round split among Ross courses given how diverse they are in location and character. For legacy has any architect had a bigger impact on Midwest? (Oakland Hills South, Inverness, Scioto, Interlachen, Franklin Hills, great Chicago catalog, dude was a Problem)
Branching off the Bruce Hepner discussion on economical design, does Ross' municipal work provide any architectural best practices for economic design in the muni setting? I live 5 minutes Rackham GC and am biased but would love to see a big ticket renovation of that course given the large swath of Detroit it services.
I had a couple of thoughts based on Justin's great question before me.
I think Augusta's best feature (or at least the best feature that is still with us today) is its routing. I'd like to hear thoughts specifically on how the routing may be different had Ross gotten the job at ANGC.
Mackenzie also used focal points in his routing to bunch up various features - the clubhouse hill that houses 1 and 10s tee as well as 9 and 18s green; the area with 3 and 8s tee and 7, 2, and 17s greens; and the section with 6, 15, and 16s greens just to name a few. Are there any specific land features out there you think Mackenzie passed on that Ross would have used as focal points? Any greensites that you think Ross would have gone for that Mackenzie didn't choose to build on?
I think this was a part of the Fried Egg's Cypress Point video, but someone said that the claim that Raynor did the most important work at Cypress because he is responsible for the routing isn't fair. Mackenzie would have certainly chose to build a similar routing. Is ANGC the same way? Is the land so extreme that there was only one way to really route that course, is Amen Corner too perfect of place for those holes, or do you think Ross's routing would have been different? Would love to just hear any thoughts y'all have on how Ross may have used the land at ANGC.
I had a couple of thoughts based on Justin's great question before me.
I think Augusta's best feature (or at least the best feature that is still with us today) is its routing. I'd like to hear thoughts on how the routing may be different had Ross gotten the job at ANGC.
Mackenzie also used focal points in his routing to bunch up various features - the clubhouse hill that houses 1 and 10s tee as well as 9 and 18s green; the area with 3 and 8s tee and 7, 2, and 17s greens; and the section with 6, 15, and 16s greens just to name a few. Are there any specific land features out there you think Mackenzie passed on that Ross would have used as focal points? Any greensites that you think Ross would have gone for that Mackenzie didn't choose to build on?
I think this was a part of the Fried Egg's Cypress Point video, but someone said that the claim that Raynor did the most important work at Cypress because it was routing isn't fair. Mackenzie would have certainly chose to build a similar routing. Is ANGC the same way? Is the land so extreme that there was only one way to really route that course or do you think Ross's routing would have been different? Would love to just hear any thoughts y'all have on how Ross may have used the land at ANGC.
A follow-up. We know Donny didn’t see every site he built a golf course on. Are there characteristics of the courses he visited that are not present in the sites he did not visit? In other ways, is there a way to tell if he was present during the build or not.
If you were blindfolded and led onto an anonymous golf course, what elements - routing, hazard placement, green shapes - would tell you it's a Ross design?
Does Ross have any template holes he returned to?
Update here: my guest is going to be Bradley Klein, whose book Discovering Donald Ross did a lot to revive interest in Ross. Feel free to ask questions specifically of Brad as well!
The story goes that Bobby Jones and Donald Ross had a handshake agreement that when Jones retired from competition and was ready to build his "ideal course" he would tap Donald Ross to do so. This all changed after losing early in the US Am at Pebble and him deciding to go see Cypress while he was out there, ultimately convincing him that Dr. MacKenzie was the guy.
What would a Donald Ross version of Augusta National have looked like? Would it resemble to closely Ross' work on the other side of Rae's Creek at ACC?