Designing Golf

It’s the new year, so we’re looking ahead. First, Garrett talks about whether modern golf architecture is running low on fresh ideas. Then he is joined by his Fried Egg Golf colleague Matt Rouches to discuss six (or, by the end of their conversation, seven) course openings they’re excited about in 2026.

In the future, when we look back on the years between 2010 and 2025, what will we see as the golf courses that defined the era? Andy Johnson and Matt Rouches join Garrett Morrison to discuss.

What is the so-called “Golden Age of golf architecture”? In this installment of our Golf Architecture 101 series, Garrett introduces his Fried Egg Golf colleague PJ Clark to the three big ideas that sparked the Golden Age at the beginning of the 20th century.

In the U.S., many of the greatest old golf courses have already undergone restoration work. So where can historically informed golf architecture go next? In this episode, Garrett explores a few projects that represent intriguing frontiers of the golf course restoration and renovation industry. First, he sits down with Jeff Stein to talk about Stein’s and Brian Ross’s historically inspired redesign of the Great Dunes at Jekyll Island Resort. Then he speaks with Clyde Johnson about the subtle craft of restoring British links courses.

The Sandbelt of Melbourne, Australia, boasts one of the densest concentrations of great golf courses in the world: the West and East courses of Royal Melbourne, Kingston Heath, Victoria Golf Club, and more. In this episode of Designing Golf, Garrett dives deep into the Sandbelt’s history, geology, golf, culture, and virtues as a destination. His guests are Harley Kruse and Lukas Michel, both Australian golf architects who are deeply familiar with the region.

Last year, a devastating wildfire hit Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada. Jasper Park Lodge and its beautiful Stanley Thompson-designed golf course sustained heavy damage. In today's episode, Garrett speaks with Canadian golf architect Ian Andrew about Jasper Park's road to recovery. They also discuss the history of Jasper Park Golf Course and the design philosophy of Stanley Thompson.

Garrett sits down with Greg Nathan, president and CEO of the National Golf Foundation, to take stock of the U.S. golf course industry. Has the post-Covid surge in participation proven sustainable? What kinds of golf course development are we seeing? Why does there seem to be an under-supply of public golf facilities in certain areas? How are short courses faring? Garrett and Greg get into these questions and more.

With the Ryder Cup approaching, Garrett asks a question that has been on his mind for a while: what, if anything, suits a golf course to the match-play format? Garrett talks to two different architects: first, Andy Staples, who recently designed a match-play course called The Match at PGA National Resort; second, Brian Schneider, who is somewhat skeptical of the notion of a “match-play course.” To close out the episode, Garrett discusses his takeaways from his chats with Andy and Brian, and he offers some thoughts on Bethpage Black’s design and suitability for the Ryder Cup.

Building off of our latest Golf Architecture 101 episode, Garrett Morrison sits down with golf historian Bob Crosby to discuss the historical roots of the notion of fairness in golf course design. Garrett and Bob explore how two major figures of the game in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Laidlaw Purves and John Low, came to represent opposite sides of the fairness debate—a debate that still rages today.

On today’s episode, we dive deep into the history and architecture of Cypress Point Club, site of the upcoming 50th Walker Cup. First, Garrett speaks with David Normoyle, author of Cypress Point’s soon-to-be-published centennial book, about the history of the club. Then Garrett offers some of his own reflections on the course’s land, routing, and design features. Finally, he brings on Joshua Pettit, founder of the Alister MacKenzie Institute, to discuss a few lesser-known facts about Cypress Point’s construction.

(0:00-8:35) Introduction and Personal History

(10:26-51:07) Interview with David Normoyle

(53:24-1:21:55...

In the latest installment of our Golf Architecture 101 series, Garrett sits down with PJ to discuss the hot-button issue of fairness. What does it mean for a golf course to be fair? What kinds of design features might be considered unfair? Should we expect fairness out of a golf course? Garrett and PJ discuss it all in this episode.

American golfers who visit the UK often come back wondering the U.S. doesn’t have more private golf clubs that encourage outside play. There are a number of reasons for the differences between the UK and U.S. club “models”—some tax-related, others having to do with history and culture. Still, it is possible to create a golf club in the U.S. that combines a strong local membership with a welcoming posture toward the public. That’s exactly what a group of people in Michigan is trying to do by reinventing Dunham Hills Golf Club as Proving Ground Gol...

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 of USGA Green Section Education. Garrett and George discuss how golf courses have evolved over the past 100 years, why course footprints have grown while many course features (fairways, bunkers, greens) have shrunk, and what these developments mean fo...

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 more.

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 programs.

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, underlying design philosophy, greens, hazards, aesthetics, and more. They also touch on the club’s controversial tree-removal program, Gil Hanse’s recent renovation work, and the kind of test that the course will adminis...

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 holes have outlived their usefulness.

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 firm Jackson Kahn Design. In this episode, Garrett Morrison speaks with Tim and David about what they make of “minimalism” as a category, how they approach different types of land, whether they’re concerned with making ar...

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 2026 Presidents Cup and an ordinary Saturday four-ball.

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 this era of his career influenced the design of Augusta National, and how it might light the way forward for golf architecture in the 21st century.

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 goal is the same: to help people feel and be more human.

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.

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 allusion to a Tim Robinson sketch.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Introducing Designing Golf, a new podcast from Fried Egg Golf, hosted by Garrett Morrison.