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.
I think it's the best thing you can do is ask the question of why they are making a temporary investment in bunkers. When there are x other things that have a longer life span and would have a better impact.
The cost of sand is one of the cheaper ways to have an immediate visual change to the course. I agree with you that it's offensive and creates too large a contrast in the landscape for my liking. However, arguing aesthetic preference isn't a strong line. I think it's better to try to point to stronger investments that could be made with the capital. As the cost of the sand might be a quick fix, but the same money deployed reasonably could be an update to an existing system or the budget to buy an extra piece of equipment. All of these have a longer life span than sand and can create a more lasting impact on the visual quality and playability.
With bunker sand swaps its not only the cost of the sand but the cost of removal and installation of the sand as well. Those hours are already being paid by the club, as they would be most likely doing this in-house. Those hours could be directed towards other projects and things, including bunker maintenance, greens expansion, etc.
This is the strategy that I know a lot of superintendents use. If you do want to help your club and be a better voice. It's always good to get to know your superintendent and his assistants.
Hope this helps
Good article, just to clarify though, Memorial wasn't a "struggling municipal course" that needed to be brought "back to life" before the renovation. It was a pretty good municipal course that was very busy and lively before the renovation. It was very difficult to get a tee time pre-renovation and still is. The course is obviously better now and people really enjoy it, but it's a bit of a stretch to say it was struggling before. Sorry to nitpick...
I have a few
"Pipe It Up" Migos - Michael Brennan & Christo Lamprecht
"No Juice" Boosie Badazz- J.J. Spaun & Brian Harman
"Hey Brother" Avicii -The Family Fitzpatrick
"Sound of da Police" Krs-One - Sam Burns & Scottie Scheffler
"Somebody I Used To Know" Gotye - Jordan Spieth & Jason Day
"Shut Up and Fish" Maddie & Tae - Dustin Johnson & Cam Smith
"Cool Kids" Echosmith - Justin Thomas & Rickie Fowler
"I'm Still Fine" Red Clay Strays - Adam Scott & Justin Rose
"I Never Lie" Zach Top - Zach Johnson & Patrick Reed
"The Next Episode" Dr Dre - Min Woo Lee & Sahith Theegala
Thoughts
Hope to retun again someday more casual, not cram as much golf in as possible and just go take a nap on 3 or 4. Lsten to the distant waves and breath it in.
Discussion Of Affordability On The Last Episode Of Designing Golf
Apr 22
I finished the podcast today. I thought it was really good.
The discussion about the Park really hit me. I remember, when they launched to much fanfare, thinking… geez, this is probably outside my budget.
Definitely like a course that gives regular a discount, but “Typical Out-of-State price range: $250-$350” is genuinely shocking.
I get that playing a new course is like buying a new car, you’re paying a ton just for the novelty, but I mean… I really understood Bruce Hepner’s exasperation.
Interesting, thanks. I think you rightly identify that it is a grey area that has never been, and likely will never be, satisfactorily delineated in plain English. Feels a bit of a Potter Stewart situation: "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it."
As a sidenote, is anyone aware of a heirarchy as to who gets to stay there? I'm aware in practice that they typically only spend one or two nights early in the week but where the ams in the field exceed the number of beds, I wonder who gets to pull rank.
And a little more background: the course was built in the 60s in MN. It's not top anything. I grew up playing here and it's home to me. I have no idea if it's a good course or not but I never tire of playing it. The owner's continue to play keeping up with the joneses rather than be trendsetters and let the course stand on its own merit.
Very biased because we’re friends with the owner but I’m a huge fan. I’ve had two over the last six years. They’re so well made. And if anything breaks in transit they’ll send you a replacement part.
Discussion Of Affordability On The Last Episode Of Designing Golf
Apr 21
There are plenty of great designers who can and will build to a budget. A big part of the issue with these renovations, though, is that they're being done at clubs that either a) weren't originally built with modern amenities like the irrigation example in the episode or b) weren't originally built with ANY long-term, lower-cost sustainability in mind.
I live in Jacksonville where there are tons of these middle ground neighborhood golf courses. They all have miles of concrete cart paths--both on the holes themselves and most notably for miles and miles in between--plus ailing water features and too many bunkers and bad drainage and all the rest of it. The cost to maintain all of that to minimum standards demands a higher price for membership or public play than they can get away with charging with "aging infrastructure." So they pop for a reno, but then no one wants a reno that takes out most of the cart paths and reduces the size of the clubhouse, and around and around she goes...
I'm pushing 50, and what's most unfortunate I think is that the less expensive aging golf courses I grew up on were all neighborhood courses that were bunched in on maybe 150 acres maximum and all the holes ran parallel and all of that but they were MUCH more sustainable and much cheaper to maintain. The modern version of those aging courses that COULD be accessible entry points for golf are all the subdivision clubs we got in the 90s with miles and miles of non-golfing ground to maintain. They're just the opposite from an expense and sustainability perspective, and we're stuck with them because even 150 acres in a similar area would be too much money in land cost (particularly when you can sell houses instead) to justify building a golf course.
Winston-Salem, NC: Reynolds Park Golf Course (Maxwell about $25 to walk)
Winston-Salem, NC: Tanglewood Park Championship Course (a solid RTJ)
Asheboro, NC: Asheboro Muni (Ross 9 holer, $10 to walk all day)
Wilmington, NC: Wilmington Muni (18 hole Ross, $46 to walk)
I mention Reynolds Park almost as much as Ben mentions Warren. It's a wonderful Maxwell on some great land. Tanglewood is a fun one with a good short 4's that are unique to my eye (5th and 15th). Two loops around Asheboro for $10 felt like petty theft. It was a delightful surprise. Wilmington Muni is in a coastal town and the city has done a good job maintaining it and restoring it. Gets a lot of play and it's not hard to see why. There's a volcano hole! And a bell!