Designing Golf

One of the most important discussions in golf architecture today relates to the “footprint” of a golf course—that is, how much space a course takes up, both physically and environmentally. As the USGA Green Section discovered in  a recent study , golf course footprints have gotten substantially bigger over time. To explore this phenomenon, Garrett Morrison sits down with George Waters, the manager...

Today we’re diving deep into this year’s Open Championship venue, the Dunluce Links at Royal Portrush Golf Club in Portrush, Northern Ireland. Garrett Morrison is joined by Matt Rouches, production associate at Fried Egg Golf, to discuss the history and architecture of this Harry Colt masterpiece. They touch on the the course’s exceptional land, inventive routing, beautifully shaped greens, and mo...

The best way to plunge a golf club into chaos is to suggest chopping down trees. In today’s episode, golf architecture author and consultant Bradley Klein joins Garrett Morrison to discuss this controversial issue. They delve into the history of trees on golf courses, explain the origins of the recent trend of tree removal, and address various arguments made both for and against tree-management pr...

Today we’re diving deep into this year’s U.S. Open venue, Oakmont Country Club in Oakmont, Pennsylvania. First, Garrett Morrison speaks with David Moore, Curator of Collections at Oakmont, about the early history of the club. Then Garrett sits down with Fried Egg Golf staff writer Joseph LaMagna to dig into the details of Oakmont’s architecture. They talk about the course’s topography, routing, un...

In this installment of our Golf Architecture 101 series, Garrett introduces his Fried Egg Golf colleague PJ Clark to C.B. Macdonald's "ideal holes." They discuss how Macdonald came up with the notion of "templates" based on famous British golf holes, and they dig into the history and characteristics of the Redan, Alps, and Road designs. Garrett and PJ wrap up by talking about whether the ideal hol...

If you’ve listened to any amount of golf architecture discussion in the past two decades, you’ve probably heard the term “minimalism.” In a basic sense, minimalism means trying to create compelling golf while moving as little earth as possible. Recently, some architects have been looking for alternatives to this philosophy. Two such architects are Tim Jackson and David Kahn, the principals of the...

It’s not easy to design a golf course that challenges elite players without making average golfers want to quit the game. That was the task OCM Golf faced in its 2023-24 redesign of Course 3 at Medinah Country Club. In this episode, OCM partner Mike Cocking sits down with Garrett Morrison to talk about how he helped reimagine Medinah No. 3 as a course simultaneously capable of hosting both the 202...

What was Alister MacKenzie up to in the 1930s? For one thing, he was building Augusta National. But more generally, MacKenzie was exploring new forms of golf architecture and producing some genuinely experimental, even radical, courses. In this episode, Garrett Morrison speaks with Josh Pettit, founder of the Alister MacKenzie Institute, about MacKenzie’s wild ’30s: what projects he completed, how...

Beau Welling is the founder and CEO of Beau Welling Design, and in addition to collaborating with Tiger Woods and designing courses like Bluejack National and Fields Ranch West at PGA Frisco, he is an an experienced landscape designer and urban planner. In this episode, Garrett Morrison talks with Beau about how designing a golf course is like designing a city. As far as Beau is concerned, the goa...

Ahead of this week's Players Championship, Garrett Morrison is joined by Fried Egg Golf's Joseph LaMagna for a discussion about Pete Dye's Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass. The two share their favorite things about the course and what makes it one of the best venues on the PGA Tour before coming up with some ideas on how the Stadium Course, and the Players itself, can improve. See omnystudio.com/lis...

In this second installment of our Golf Architecture 101 series, Garrett Morrison guides Fried Egg Golf producer PJ Clark through Alister MacKenzie’s famous 13 principles of golf course design. Garrett and PJ give particular attention to MacKenzie’s preferences for hole-to-hole variety, a minimum of blind approaches, returning nines, and naturalistic earthworks. They also manage to work in an allus...

If you want to learn more about golf course design, which books should you read? Garrett Morrison fields this question pretty frequently, so for today’s episode, he brings on writer and historian Stephen Proctor to discuss the 10 most essential golf architecture books. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Geoff Ogilvy is the 2006 U.S. Open champion, one of the sharpest minds in golf, and an architect whose firm, OCM, is making waves in the industry. In this episode, Garrett Morrison asks him about the four golf courses that most influenced his ideas about the game. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the first episode of our Golf Architecture 101 series, Garrett Morrison talks Fried Egg Golf producer PJ Clark through the so-called “schools”—that is, philosophies—of golf course design: penal, strategic, and heroic. If you want to learn more about golf architecture, this is a good place to start. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Garrett Morrison sits down with Fried Egg Golf founder Andy Johnson to preview the year in golf architecture. Garrett and Andy discuss the projects, architects, and trends that they’ll be tracking in 2025. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Introducing Designing Golf, a new podcast from Fried Egg Golf, hosted by Garrett Morrison. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.