by We at The Fried Egg love when a major championship goes to an exciting venue, so we went a little crazy in the run-up to this week’s PGA Championship at Kiawah Island. Can you blame us? The U.S. Open is at Torrey Pines this year.
So before the action gets underway at the Pete Dye-designed Ocean Course tomorrow, we thought we’d put all of our tournament-preview content in the same place.
If you need somewhere to start, we’d recommend our course-profile video, which features drone footage from Andy Johnson and commentary from Andy, Garrett Morrison, and Charleston-based golf architect Troy Miller.
Want to go deeper on Kiawah? The Fried Egg podcast has you covered.
Last week, we kicked off the second season of Fried Egg Stories, our audio-documentary series, with the wild tale of how Pete Dye and his crew finished the Ocean Course in time for the 1991 Ryder Cup in spite of nervous officials, skeptical players, and a massive hurricane that laid waste to the site shortly after construction began.
In the years after its debut at the Ryder Cup, the Ocean Course has evolved substantially. It has even changed quite a bit since 2012, when it last hosted the PGA Championship. To understand the current state of Dye’s Lowcountry magnum opus, Andy talked with Kiawah’s consulting architect Scot Sherman.
No one knows a golf course better than those who maintain it, so Andy spoke with Jeff Stone, the Ocean Course’s longtime superintendent, about what to expect from the playing surfaces at the PGA Championship.
If you prefer the written word, Andy also penned a course-preview series for PGA.com:
Having done enough obsessing over the Ocean Course itself, Andy called up CBS’s Kyle Porter to chat about favorites, storylines, and how the tournament might play out.
Andy and Kyle make some predictions in that podcast, but if it’s genuinely reliable fantasy advice you’re after, Fried Egg Paulie is your man. As always, he has some smart DraftKings and one-and-done recommendations.
Throughout the event, Andy will be on site at the Ocean Course, putting out daily episodes of the Shotgun Start podcast and writing the occasional dispatch for this here website. His Tuesday and Wednesday notes are live, and more are on the way.
Finally, Will Knights wrote a Thursday Jr. column about why it’s a good thing that many players, pundits, and fans feel uncertain going into this PGA Championship. He’ll also be sending out daily newsletters throughout the tournament. Subscribe for free!
Right now on Kiawah Island, the meteorologists are predicting a lot of sun and a steady breeze, and the pros are remarking on the unusual experience of using every club in their bags. It should be an entertaining week. Enjoy it!
