I playedy a provincial amateur qualifier today at a Tom Fazio desiged course I had not seen since it opened 20 years ago (https://coppinwood.com/). I had never played it. I believe they host this every year and I want another crack in 2027

Despite not officially taking the day off work (I took one call, sent some texts/emails on course), buying a new house and thinking I would be late for the home inspection, leaving my wife no option but to murder me, I struck the ball really well and got nothing out of it.

I shot my worst score in years, and was literally siging my card thinking "Really! Like, I shot that!!!"

It left me wanting to do these more, but how can I build habits that actually translate to tournamet golf when I have zero time for practice and I am lucky if I get a weekend game in at 6:00am on a dew covered golf course?

https://youtube.com/shorts/adNBVxdA12Y?si=OUGsNr746Y0er2sh just saw this short on YouTube about the four tennis majors using different balls due to the different conditions. Is this something that would work for golf? 

Hey everyone!

I am departing on the cross country road trip of a lifetime in a few short weeks and hoping to squeeze in a lot of golf. I'm funemployed until I start grad school in the fall, so hoping to make the most of this chunk of time.

I've got some great spots lined up already, but really curious to hear if the FEGC community has recs that would otherwise slip under the radar. My route is as follows:

DMV area -> Cleveland -> Chicago -> Des Moines -> Valentine, NE (Prairie Club) -> Denver, CO (Common Ground) -> Park City, UT -> Springdale, UT -> Las Vegas -> LA -> SF via the Pacific Coast Highway, ending the trip with a round at Northwood Golf Club.

If there's any can't miss publicly accessible golf or local gems along the way, any and all advice/recs would be very much appreciated!

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!

Please excuse the post 20-hour travel day grogginess, but before we get to our full written content coming out of our SW Ireland trip I wanted to do a bit of a rambling thoughts, emptying the notebook post here.

A group of 20 of us just got back from a whirlwind of a trip through SW Ireland. Across 8 days we had a total of two hours of rain and I legitimately returned with a tan. It was one of the more unexpected weather weeks I can remember from any golf trip and there are so many great memories to come out of it. Here are a few I hope will be relatable to those who have been to SW Ireland and notes that will hopefully inspire more of you to go in the future!

1. Dooks Golf Club absolutely knocked my socks off. It's not the most dramatic golf in the region but it is 100% a place I would want to play every day. It's a stunning property with gorgeous views and the golf course is incredibly fun.

2. I wouldn't recommend slamming pot roast and mashed potatoes 15 minutes before your tee time at Dooks, no matter how delicious it may be.

3. Killarney is a ton of fun and J.R. Reidy's might be the best bar in the world.

4. People should talk more about the front nine at Tralee. The back nine is all the internet seems to know about and yet there are a good chunk of strong holes on the opening nine.

5. Pro shop pricing in this region is staggering. Although money doesn't really matter on this kind of trip.

6. If you walk into a bar and someone has a mostly finished pint of Guinness and the head isn't stuck all along the sides of the glass, don't order the Guinness. It's a bad pour.

7. Waterville is a journey but the drive to get there might just be as enjoyable as the golf course itself.

8. It sounds stupid but the people really make a golf trip. We played top-notch courses throughout this trip but I really will mostly remember the people. Including our bus driver Paddy.

9. It's a serious financial commitment to do one of these trips and that's not something I take for granted. Golf in the UK and Ireland is special though and it's worth saving for and making a trip of it.

10. Lahinch is every bit as good as I thought it would be. Maybe better

11. My final night of the trip was spent sitting atop a dune between the 6th and 9th holes at Lahinch with the drone in the air during sunset. It was a magical experience that I cannot wait to write more about and share with you all.

12. Ballybunion is one of the better storytelling routings that I've played. it's not the original routing, but its current iteration is wonderful. I think the original may have been even better.

13. I'm filled with an immense sense of gratitude this morning. We started FE Events in 2019 with the aim of getting golf nuts together for golf trips and now we're sending dozens of people international on a yearly basis and having thousands more get together throughout the year in the states. It's been a hell of a journey and I cannot thank you all enough for your support of our team and our company. We truly believe in what we're building here and have big hopes for FEGC. The people that have joined in so far and the many more that are joining us this year are a testament to the eagerness to play with other golf nuts and travel the world together. I cannot wait for what the future holds.

Here's to many more years of FEGC

Let's see everyone's best PGA playing cards. One of my favorite parts of receiving a Fried Egg pro shop purchase is the anticipation of what playing card I will receive!

Apologies if this has been asked before, but my wife (whose interest in golf is steadily rising) and I were talking about FEGC recently. She asked me how good other people in the club are at golf, as she's trying to process how people can become sickos even if their handicap is well into the double digits. As I told her, of course, the bug can infect you quickly and it doesn't matter how skilled you are when you get passionate enough to intelligently speak about the game.

With that in mind, I must say I did not have a great guess for her as to what the average handicap of the FEGC membership would be. I speculated 5 with little confidence. I personally sit at a 3 and had it as low as +1 in 2018. I don't imagine I'll reach that level again, but I am content with breaking 80 consistently, and if I continue doing that I'll be happy. Where does everyone else stand?

Iʻm having my bachelor party in Palm Springs, CA in a couple of weeks, where we will be playing 36 holes + 18 hole par 3 course. Thereʻs 12 of us - with a pretty large gap in player ability (1 "scratch", 4 single digit, 4 15ish, 3 guys who canʻt complete a round with their own ball)

Looking for game suggestions that are fun for the whole crew, but also competitive enough for the better players to compete / stay interested (no scrambles)

We will play a CTP but looking for round and weekend game suggestions. Thanks gang!

P.S. - See yʻall at Soule this weekend!!

The ultimate catnip for female golf fans and pop culture fringe fans is Masters outfits. I need to know if this is a thing for guys as well. Do you think about what you're wearing to ANGC? Is it a logo thing?

During a recent round with an old college pal, we played a match with the stakes being the loser had to purchase their own Greg Norman straw cowboy hat in a color of their choosing.

We set the strokes up to have the absolute most competitive match possible and if not for a stroke of luck and an ill timed fiasco, it would have gone all 18.

Anyways, I squeaked out a W and my buddy ordered his hat and surprised me this evening with a picture wearing his prize/punishment.

Should this be a thing? Should friend groups in 2026 punish poor play with a shark show each weekend?

Whatʻs up guys!

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?

Thanks guys!

After listening to KVV's interview on the GD pod, I thought it would be a good time to start a thread about sharing the game we love with our kids.

Fellow eggheads - I’ve got my first “real” golf trip pegged for this summer. 5 days of Sand Valley, Lawsonia, and potentially Erin Hills. Growing up, I played enough to have a game until I graduated high school, but never competitively. The last ten years I’ve played a lot more and land between 15-25 rounds a year depending on life.

Last summer I walked 3 rounds in about 36 hours out at Pinehurst and Mid Pines. My swing started to abandon me a few different times on day 2, but with 9 left on the trip, I got an awful case of the lefts that I guessed was because my legs were shot. With my big trip this year (and a smaller 2.5 day one out to Aiken before it), I am really hoping to avoid my game vanishing for the trip.

What can I do to prep? Is it strength training with my legs and back? Something else? I’m in pretty solid shape for my mid 30s. I play a little tennis, run, and hit the stationary bike from to time.

I got into a spirited debate with a friend about equipment rollbacks needed. This person works in golf and respect tremendously. However, I got to defend the SGS positions of shrinking driver heads, reducing the ball by 20% and banning mallet putters. In my debate I dug up the Acushnet CEO's on record comments concerning a rollback and I died laughing at how poorly they have aged over the last three years.

Link to statement:

https://media.titleist.com/images/titleist/files/US/AcushnetCEOstatement12623.pdf?_gl=1*g02xqg*_ga*MTc0OTM3MzgyMi4xNzcyNDcyMTY3*_ga_NDEGCLSWHY*czE3NzI0NzIxNjYkbzEkZzAkdDE3NzI0NzIxNzMkajYwJGwwJGgxMjM3MjgzMDY2*_gcl_au*MTA5Nzc0MjI1MS4xNzcyNDcyMTcz

"It is also Acushnet’s position that existing golf ball regulations are effective and stand the test of time."

"As we consider today’s R&A and USGA announcement against recent feedback provided by the World Alliance of PGA’s and the PGA TOUR, we are also concerned that the golf ball rollback overly impacts golfers and does not fully reflect the input of those closest to the game."

"Many important stakeholders do not see distance as a problem the way the governing bodies do"

"We support the position of the PGA TOUR and others that there are many areas of focus at the elite level, including initiatives related to golf course setup and conditioning, and other competitive variables which, if desired, can limit the effects of distance while also providing the opportunity for a diverse skill set to succeed at the highest level."

"We note that the mean of the fastest 1% of measured clubhead speeds on the PGA TOUR was flat from 2019-2021 and declined in 2022 and 2023. The mean of the fastest 5%, 10%, 20% and 50% of measured clubhead speeds has been flat since 2017. We consider that the average course playing length on the 2023 PGA TOUR is less than 7,200 yards, just as it has been every year since 2004. We also note that U.S. golf courses built during the period 2010-2020 averaged 6,652 yards - 274 yards shorter than those built between 1990-2010, which is at odds with the notion that equipment has forced courses to expand."

Not sure about the clubhead speed measurements but I doubt they are the same today, anecdotally it doesn't seem to hold up.

One of the things that may be subtle but seems incredibly disingenuous to me is how the alternate between PGA Tour studies and pro golf as examples then switch back to talking about the average players and the average golf courses. I have no reason to doubt that the stats they are listing are true but in my mind they are highly suspect to cherry-picking.

Hope y'all find this as funny and reprehensible as I did.

Hello All

My name is Mark and I am a PGA golf professional and a full time club fitter.

So, if any of you have any fitting questions I would love to help you all out. Especially with all the new drivers now costing well over $1000 if you get a fancy shaft.