The Fried Egg Golf Podcast

Over the past week, the PGA Tour has released details about the structure of its new "designated event model." To sort it all out, Andy sits down with former tour player Joe Ogilvie (@ogilviej). Joe talks about his time on the Tour's player advisory council and policy board, the past 18 months in golf, his thoughts on the Tour's proposed changes, and what he would do if he were commissioner.

It's Players week! Shane Bacon (@shanebacon) joins Andy to preview the action at TPC Sawgrass. They discuss how designated events will affect the 2023 Players and future tournaments, the Tour's response to LIV defectors (including last year's Players champion Cameron Smith), which players might have a breakout week, and the uniqueness of the Stadium Course's design. Shane and Andy wrap up by giving their picks to win.

LIV Golf is getting some brutal-sounding ratings on the CW, the PGA Tour's TV partners are changing things up, and golf broadcasting has become a hot topic lately. To break it all down, Garrett talks with Josh Carpenter (@JoshACarpenter), an assistant managing editor at Sports Business Journal. Josh is also, as will become apparent in this episode, a golf nut. He and Garrett discuss LIV's disappointing debut performance on the CW, what golf ratings can and can't tell us, and how the breakaway league's business prospects look in year two. In the second half of the episode, they dig into the attempts by CBS and NBC to freshen up PGA Tour telecasts and the potential effects of the new designated-event structure on the Tour's bottom line.

Javier Campos (@CalClimbingSoup) is the golf course superintendent at the California Golf Club of San Francisco, more commonly known as Cal Club. Javier sits down with Andy to discuss, among other things, how he worked his way up the ranks of Cal Club's grounds crew, the influence of his mentor Thomas Bastis, the difficulties of the past winter in Northern California (which included a Caddyshack-like invasion of gophers), the intricacies of managing fine fescue and bentgrass surfaces on the West Coast, and his thoughts about autonomous maintenance equipment.Before getting to his chat with Javier, Andy goes through what the PGA Tour's FedEx Cup top 10 would be if the FEC were determined by designated-event results only.

Andy starts this episode by running through his 10 (early) favorites to win the 2023 Masters. He is then joined by Joseph LaMagna (@JosephLaMagna) to talk about a variety of topics: their takeaways from the West Coast swing, the players on the PGA Tour who have stood out so far, the debate around the 10th hole at Riviera, the distinction between short par 4s and drivable par 4s, and Sports Illustrated's highly questionable new world ranking.

Thirty-four-year-old Andrew Putnam is a pro's pro. He has quietly put together an impressive career on the PGA Tour, winning once (at the 2018 Barracuda) and establishing himself as one of the best putters in the game. He joins Andy to discuss what it's like to be a tour pro living in the Pacific Northwest, what he thinks of the new designated-event series, why he plays with no swing coach, and what it takes to be a great on the greens.

The much-anticipated Netflix docuseries on professional golf has arrived. Full Swing debuted yesterday with eight episodes on the 2022 PGA Tour (and LIV) season. For some honest reactions to the show, Garrett calls up Megan Schuster (@megschuster), who covers golf and Formula 1 for The Ringer. Garrett and Megan start off by talking about what made Drive to Survive, Netflix's F1 series, so effective and popular. They then delve into Full Swing, discussing its strengths, most and least appealing characters, funniest random moments, and various shortcomings.For more on Full Swing, check out The Fried Egg's new podcast Full Swing Thoughts, in which Andy Johnson, Brendan Porath, and Joseph LaMagna break down the series episode by episode. Search for it wherever you get podcasts, or:Subscribe on iTunesSubscribe on Spotify

LIV Golf, the upstart golf tour backed by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, will start its second season next week in Mexico. It's been an odd, somewhat rough offseason for Greg Norman's organization, with executives fleeing and no big-name player signings. To get a sense for what's going on in LIV-land, Garrett sits down with Adam Woodard (@AdamWoodard), who covers the league for Golfweek. Garrett and Adam talk about LIV's major successes and failures in 2022, its seeming loss of momentum in the past few months, and its prospects for 2023. They also discuss Adam's approach to and feelings about doing traditional, neutral-voiced reporting about a sports league associated with real-world ills.

This week's Waste Management Phoenix Open is the PGA Tour's first full-field "designated event." The designated-event series, created in response to LIV Golf's attempts to lure the world's top male players with guaranteed paydays, will transform the Tour's structure in ways that are hard to predict. After discussing the Phoenix Open and its better-than-you-might-think venue, Andy and Garrett explain why they're excited about designated events, both as a product and as a catalyst for change on the PGA Tour. In the second half of the episode, they address some of their lingering questions about the series, and Andy lays out a pitch for each event's field size and qualification criteria.

Thad Layton has worked for Arnold Palmer Design since he graduated from college 23 years ago, and today he is the Senior Golf Course Architect and Vice President at the company. He joins Andy to talk about working with Arnold Palmer and building golf courses all over the world, including getting his first lead-design gig on a project in Kazakhstan. In recent years, Thad has done a lot of compelling work under the APDC umbrella, and he tells Andy about guiding the company into a new era.Before getting to his conversation with Thad (5:45), Andy shares some thoughts about the play stoppages at last weekend's Pebble Beach Pro-Am and how America's obsession with fast greens is partly to blame.