A Club TFE Day Out at Meadow Club

We tend not to “cover” our own events with much detail. The internet has made the world smaller and more connected, but obviously it can isolate. Fried Egg Golf events are a chance to congregate in real life, not on the Internet, at a course that we find interesting and hope attendees will as well. They are not a chance to create a bunch of content. The phones tend to go away.

But for our first Member-Guest event in the inaugural year of Club TFE, we wanted to get the full Fried Egg Golf team out to Meadow Club to hang. It’s not often we are all in the same place at the same time. That included our exceptional photographers and videographers, Cameron Hurdus and Matt Rouches, who bounced around during the day capturing some scenes and putting together this video.

They got a perfect day to shoot and, hopefully for those of you who attended, you found it a perfect day to play. It may sound treacly, but we do not take lightly your decision to spend money and join Club TFE and think about how it’s going and how it could be made better on a weekly, if not daily, basis. The same considerations and thought went into the Member-Guest and we were fortunate with fabulous weather, a fantastic host club, and a great mix of members chopping it up both at the welcome dinner in Fairfax on Sunday night and then all day Monday at the course.

After a handful of instructions, and maybe one tiny tee box oversight, from our fearless leader with the bullhorn, the morning round of alternate shot matches commenced. The format was flighted match play – two nine-hole alt-shot matches in the morning, and then a flight championship match of 18-hole best ball in the afternoon.

The winners were…

• Meadow Club Flight – Ryan Atkinson & Adam Staley
• Pasatiempo Flight – Eric Field & Taylor Roberts
• Cypress Point Flight – Will Kladakis & Marc Paquette
• Valley Club Flight – Tony Scallon & Tom Nelson
• Northwood Flight – Steven Ottobre & Corey Leggett
• Sharp Park Flight – Kyle Yoshioka & Steve Yoshioka

Some other odds and ends from the day:

• We had an ace at the 14th hole by Michael Goody, who casually mentioned the feat, his first ever hole-in-one, as he passed by the Fried Egg team hanging in the middle of the course. There were no shouts of joy echoing through the Meadow Club as it went in blind from the tee, but Mr. Goody did earn the first ever hastily whipped up Michael Block (No Way?! Me?!) Hole-in-One Award.

Andy, Brendan and Mr. Ace, Michael Goody

• Andy instituted a tiebreak rule he picked up from Tom Doak, and one that became a subject of discussion throughout the day. If the match ends tied, the team that won a most recent hole takes the overall match. You’re one-up going into the last and lose it? You lose the whole thing. Or maybe you won the first, lost the second, and then halved all the way in…too bad. Those who got jammed by this rule and were on the wrong end earned some extra B.Draddy apparel as an empathetic nod for dealing with Andy’s little funhouse of horrors.
• There were also additional B.Draddy items for those who went 0-3 during the day. We would never encourage dishonorable tanking so this may never happen again at future match play events.
• It was a great balance of people who love golf but do not take themselves too seriously, as evidenced by a few Shotgun Start elements like a recently procured Wilson Staff polo, a Just-A-Guy hat, and #BurlyBoy representation from Oklahoma.
• The field also featured a range of travel from across the USA by both members and guests, with plenty of California representation. The farthest traveled award went to Nick Hercules, however, who arrived from Liverpool. His clubs did not make it, but perhaps buoyed by his Tottenham team at the top of the EPL table, his spirit was infectious and his tales from overseas were entertaining.
• We were also honored to have Josh Pettit, author of The Mackenzie Reader, at a place that clearly cherishes its history with the Good Doctor.

Again, your decisions to be members enable us to travel and see more of the courses featured in a weekly Profile or pick up some of the nuggets dropped in a Design Notebook. It’s also affirmation to put on events like the Member-Guest at Meadow Club. We’d ideally take as many as are interested but you don’t need us out there hectoring you about pace of play any more than we already do, so numbers have to be kept within reason. So we will do it again in 2024 with another Member-Guest event, in addition to a handful of member-only events with additional “golf-in-the-area opportunities” for those of you who want it. We see these not as an opportunity to make a buck but as a chance to put the internet away for a day and get together in real life.

Club TFE members playing the 11th hole at Meadow Club

Owing less to do with what we did, we were thrilled with how the first ever Club TFE Member-Guest came together from the people, the place, the drinks and food, and the overall experience from the moment the sun came up over the mountain to the last call. But we’re sure things could have been better in spots and if you were there, we earnestly want to hear what worked and what fell short.

A brilliant old boss of mine in sports media once charged us with the task of being “an appreciation machine” for sports fans on the internet. That meant enjoying and amplifying both the sacred and the inane. The goal of this Club is to hopefully make you further appreciate the game, its courses, fellow members, and experiences like the Member-Guest. Cheers to 2024.