Eatin’ good at the PGA Tour

East Lake’s international golf championship comes with a side of tasty

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Every year, the top 30 golfers in the world gather together for the final leg of the PGA Tour at Atlanta’s East Lake Golf Club to duke it out for the FedEx Cup. At the risk of bringing great shame to my father, I’ll admit that I did not know this until last week.



To be clear, I have pretty much zero knowledge of/interest in golf. But I am very interested in food. So when I got the chance for a behind-the-scenes culinary tour of the TOUR Championship, I figured, why not? If 30 golfers and about 70,000 fans can travel from all corners of the globe to partake in what is apparently a world-famous Atlanta tradition, I could surely travel one exit down I-20 to see what all the fuss is about.

Plus, there would be Fox Bros.

I arrived at the East Lake Golf Club yesterday afternoon, wearing what I deemed a golferly ensemble (blue and white stripes?), and hopped on the back of a golf cart with my intrepid guides Mark and Wendy. After touring a private jet (a cool million will get you 100 flying hours a year, in case this applies to anyone who reads Creative Loafing) and the official golf club fixing station (not sure if that was the technical term), it was time for food! Or first, wine. Best consumed on an empty stomach.

As the official wine partners of the PGA Tour, William Hill Winery has a Napa Valley style tasting room set up right on the 16th hole. This is a way I could be down with golf, thought I, sipping a mimosa from a plastic glass as I gazed out onto the green, where surprisingly ripped-looking dudes were practicing their swings for my enjoyment.

No value assignedFrom there, it was on to the SO Cool Zone, where the Taste of ATL tent spotlights local grub from Fox Bros Bar-B-Q, Universal Joint and King of Pops. Fox Bros serves up heaping portions of their famous brisket, pork, smoked chicken salad and criminally underrated house-made jalapeno cheddar sausage to spectators at umbrella-covered tables. Oakhurst’s Universal Joint dishes spicy chicken egg rolls with sweet mango chutney, a smoky brisket Philly, perfectly crispy tater tots with jalapeno queso, BBQ nachos and a variety of soft shell tacos. To say I feasted would probably be an understatement. I also took a tour of a Tiny House and pet a teensy crocodile.

After a quick stop at the Grey Goose lounge for a Le Grand Fizz (Grey Goose Le Poire, St. Germain elderflower liqueur, lime and soda) and some surreptitious Snapchatting from the practice green, it was into the hallowed halls of the East Lake Golf Clubhouse to meet executive chef Nick Barrington, the man in charge of keeping Earth’s top 30 golfers fed.

A self-proclaimed career club chef, Barrington spent over two decades as executive sous chef for Arnold Palmer (yes, that Arnold Palmer) at his Bay Hill Club and Lodge in Orlando before relocating to East Lake in 2014. He has cooked for the past four presidents and the Queen of England, but found a niche in golf. Barrington says he is one of those rare males who doesn’t know anything about sports, but that golfers are pretty chill to cook for.

In addition to being the oldest golf course in Atlanta (it opened in 1904), East Lake Golf Club is a social business, donating all its proceeds to the community revitalization efforts of the East Lake Foundation. They also have a legendary fried chicken recipe, made with the club’s secret blend of spices. “When I first got here, the club didn’t explain how important the fried chicken was,” Barrington recalled. “People walked out of my Father’s Day brunch because it wasn’t on the menu.”

No value assignedThe fried chicken flows freely throughout the TOUR Championship—juicy and tender with just the right amount of spice in the batter. (For the record, it also passes the Cliff Bostock refrigerator test.) But Barrington says the golfers aren’t necessarily chowing down on drumsticks and brisket all day. Upstairs in the private lounge, his two-chef team serves up…well, pretty much anything the pros ask for. “The thing about the PGA is you have to earn your right to stay here,” Barrington explained. “But once you do, it’s pretty much carte blanche.”

So if Jordan Speith (a famous golfer who won last year’s FedEx Cup, as I learned yesterday) wants sushi for breakfast? He gets it. (“Underneath that shirt, that guy is ripped better than Beckham,” noted Barrington, to the delight of Wendy and myself.) Barrington’s team won’t hesitate to run out to the nearest Publix for Cholula or order in the city’s best fatty tuna rolls if that’s what a player asks for. But it’s a fun challenge, the chef said, scrolling through pictures on his phone of the morning’s breakfast: pancakes poured into rather disturbingly accurate portraits of the tournament’s top players by Washington-based pancake master Nathan Shields.

I myself finished things off with the club’s famous banana pudding, packed with real ‘naners and served in cute little bite-sized cups. Then, sun-woozy and newly armed with Facts About Golf, it was time to head home. I will leave you with the three most important things I learned.

1) Adam Scott is not only an actor on Parks and Rec, but also a very sexy golfer from Australia.

2) Jordan Spieth was born in Dallas, just like me! (This information brought to you via text message from my dad.)

3) Golf is fun with food and booze.

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