The Fried Egg Golf Podcast

Sara Mess joins Garrett Morrison to discuss her involvement in the Glenway Golf Park renovation in Madison, Wisconsin. This unique project, spearheaded by Michael Keiser and his wife Jocelyn, will both revive the Glenway course and engage the Madison community in a number of creative ways. Sara also discusses her time working at Renaissance Golf Design, her collaboration with Tom Doak on his recen...

Andy Johnson’s recent travels have taken him to two municipal golf courses with A-1 architectural pedigrees: Donald Ross’s George Wright Golf Course near Boston, Massachusetts; and A.W. Tillinghast’s Swope Memorial Golf Course in Kansas City, Missouri. In this episode, Andy sits down with Garrett Morrison to reflect on what makes these courses special. They discuss Ross’s clever drainage methods a...

Korn Ferry Tour player Vince India ( @vince_india ) catches up with Andy Johnson and discusses the grind that is the Second Stage of Q-School. Vince has made it through every level of Q-School for six years running. He shares some of his favorite stories and explains how his mindset going into qualifying has changed over the years. Andy and Vince also discuss the rising importance of physical cond...

Rodney Hine got his start in the turf industry as an assistant superintendent at Winged Foot Golf Club. He then moved into golf course design, serving as the grow-in superintendent at Tom Doak's Stonewall and eventually as a designer and agronomist for Hanse Golf Course Design. After helping Gil Hanse build Boston Golf Club in 2003, Rodney decided to stay on as the course's first superintendent, a...

This past weekend, Team USA won the Ryder Cup in dominant fashion, beating the European side 19-9. To get a handle on what this victory means, Garrett Morrison called up three different people—Ben Coley of Sporting Life , Joseph LaMagna of the Finding the Edge newsletter, and Shane Ryan of Golf Digest —and asked each for one big takeaway from the action at Whistling Straits. See omnystudio.com/lis...

Lawrence Donegan ( @lawrencedonegan ) is a longtime golf journalist who has worked for The Scotsman and The Guardian . He co-founded the excellent McKellar Magazine and hosts the McKellar Golf Podcast . With the 2020 (not a typo) Ryder Cup approaching, Lawrence joins Andy Johnson to share five things to watch for at Whistling Straits. They discuss Steve Stricker’s uninspired start to his week-of c...

To get ready for this week’s Ryder Cup, Andy Johnson and Garrett Morrison chat about the design of host venue Whistling Straits. Andy recently shot the Straits Course for a new Fried Egg video , so Garrett asks for his thoughts on Pete Dye’s routing, par-3 concepts, and outrageous shaping. They also discuss the PGA of America’s hefty build-outs, the reasons behind Andy’s hatred of catch basins, an...

After a well-regarded run as LPGA commissioner, Mike Whan started two months ago as the CEO of the USGA. Earlier this week, he sat down with Andy Johnson at Chicago Golf Club to discuss a variety of topics. They cover Whan's thinking about the USGA's priorities, championship host selection, and the potential of bringing the U.S. Open back to Chicago and the Midwest. Whan also weighs in on the hott...

In this wide-ranging conversation, Don Placek, Partner at Renaissance Golf Design, and Andy Johnson cover the complexity and challenges of the golf architecture consulting business, compare finding new golf courses to discovering new music, and discuss Don’s passion for drawing, maps, and art in general. Don shares how his passions and talents outside of golf improve Renaissance Golf Design’s work...

If you're in Northern Lower Michigan to play Arcadia Bluffs or Crystal Downs, you shouldn't skip Champion Hill Golf Course and Pinecroft Golf Course. Public, affordable, and well designed, Champion Hill and Pinecroft are owned and operated by one family. Is this the ideal business model for affordable golf? Andy Johnson and Garrett Morrison tackle that question in this episode, but first they spen...

Team match play is the most entertaining format in golf, but we might not understand it very well. What factors should team captains consider when pairing players up for foursomes and four-ball? How much does a player's past match-play record matter? In alternate shot, how should teammates decide who tees off on which holes? Joseph LaMagna ( @JosephLaMagna ) believes that the conventional answers...

Belvedere Golf Club superintendent Jordan Caplan joins the podcast to talk about the Willie Watson course and his role as the club's fourth superintendent in its almost 100-year history. Jordan and Andy Johnson discuss the challenges of course maintenance in harsh Northern Lower Michigan winters and the differences between the Belvedere job and Jordan’s past work at Philadelphia Cricket Club. They...

Andrew Green is one of the busiest golf architects in the industry. He recently completed a restoration of Oak Hill's East Course and a renovation of Congressional's Blue Course, and he's currently doing work at Scioto, Wannamoisett, and Interlachen. Andrew's best-known project to date may be his bold 2017 restoration of Inverness Club, a 1919 Donald Ross design that has hosted six major champions...

Nick Nate, superintendent at South Bend Country Club, talks with Andy Johnson about his career in turf, which has taken him from his hometown in South Bend, Indiana, to the Old Course and back home again. They discuss Nick's start in the business at Warren Golf Course when it first opened, the perks of his internship at St. Andrews and his stint in Scotland, prepping Medinah Country Club for the 2...

Today, Homer Kelley's 1969 book  The Golfing Machine is a standard text for those who study the science of the golf swing. Famous instructors cite it, as do tour pros like Bryson DeChambeau and Steve Elkington. But in 1982,  The Golfing Machine was most associated with 23-year-old Bobby Clampett, who had been schooled in Kelley's system. Clampett had compiled a stellar amateur résumé, and after tw...

The men's and women's golf competitions at the Olympic Games took place over the past couple of weeks, with Xander Schauffele and Nelly Korda earning gold medals for the United States. The action from Tokyo was fun to watch, but we couldn't help but wonder if it could be even more exciting. So Andy Johnson called up Kevin Van Valkenburg ( @KVanValkenburg ), a senior writer for ESPN, and talked wit...

With the golf competitions underway at the Tokyo Olympics, Garrett Morrison sits down with Michael Wolf ( @bamabearcat ) to learn more about Japan's distinctive golf culture. Michael is a golf architecture and history nut who has traveled and played golf extensively in Japan. He and Garrett talk about the customs of Japanese golf clubs, Michael's tips and tricks for traveling within the country, a...

In the latest installment of our interview series with Tom Doak, Tom gives an update on the progress at the Lido, the Keiser family’s latest course near Sand Valley. He and Andy discuss the pros and cons of the technology used to build the course, and they speculate on how it might be used in future restoration projects and in golf course architecture in general. They also chat about Tom’s ongoing...

The Yolk with Doak returns! In the first of two new episodes of our interview series with golf architect Tom Doak, we cover the recent grand opening of St. Patrick's Links at the Rosapenna Hotel and Golf Resort in Ireland. Tom and Andy chat about where the course would land on the Doak Scale and the unique challenge of finishing the project during a global pandemic. They also discuss Tom's new boo...

Golf Channel's Jaime Diaz joins Andy to discuss this week's Open Championship at Royal St. George's. Jaime has over 30 years of experience in golf journalism, and he shares his favorite memories from the Open and how writing about it differs from covering it for TV. He and Andy also talk about Bryson, Rory, Rahm, and other players hoping to lift the Claret Jug on Sunday. See omnystudio.com/listene...

When Royal St. George's Golf Club, the host of the upcoming Open Championship, opened in the late 1880s, it looked a lot different than it does today. The earliest iteration of the course embodied the Victorian principles of its designer, Laidlaw Purves. Over the next few decades, those principles—and Royal St. George's itself—came under fire from a new school of golf writers and architects. Histo...

Brendan Byrne, superintendent and co-general manager at Llanerch Country Club in Havertown, Pennsylvania, chats with Andy about his 20+ year career in golf, from starting out at Rolling Green Golf Club to overseeing the recent restoration at Llanerch. He shares stories from his unique experience at the 1999 Ryder Cup, offers his expertise on managing staffs, and provides insight on how the golf in...

Shane Ryan is a contributor for GolfDigest.com and the author of Slaying the Tiger , an account of the 2014 PGA Tour season. He sits down with Garrett Morrison to talk about the KPMG Women's PGA Championship, which he covered last week; his new book project and podcast series on the Ryder Cup; and how the golf world has changed since he went out on tour in 2014. They also touch on the current disc...

Shane Bacon, co-host of Golf Today and the Get a Grip podcast, joins Andy for a recap of the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. The two discuss Jon Rahm's breakthrough major win, Bryson's claim of not caring about his 44 on the final nine, and the bizarre series of events on the 13th hole on Sunday. They also chat about what they're looking forward to at the upcoming Open Championship and Olympic Games. S...

PGA professional Brad Marek joins Andy to discuss his great run at last month's PGA Championship. Brad played for years on the mini tours before becoming a well-regarded teaching pro at Corica Park in the Bay Area. In this episode, he and Andy delve into that transition. They also talk about everything from Brad's brush with stretching-themed social media fame to his experience at the Ocean Course...