Hats off to Art Hennington, the retired Elk River history teacher who on Thursday presumably became the first person to play all of Minnesota’s golf courses. The “presumably” is included mostly because, A, no one with a similar claim has come forward, as far as I know, and B, we have to presume Hennington is an upstanding fellow who hasn’t played, say, 54 Minnesota courses and meanwhile studied the state’s golf guides in order to sound credible should anyone challenge his claim. (Highly unlikely. Throw the name of a course or town at Hennington, and he’ll likely have at least a couple of nuggets to pass along from his stop there.)
I was fortunate enough to chat with Hennington and his wife, Joni, a couple of hours before he teed off at St. Paul’s Town & Country Club, the 526th course he now has played. My story for the St. Paul Pioneer Press is here (thanks to my editors, who let an embarrassingly long story by newspaper standards run in its entirety): http://bit.ly/1na5SWo
I would be interested in hearing about how many courses the Minnesota golfers out there have played — also favorites, anecdotes, even the “unfavorites” — but keep it classy, please. In the meantime, I’ll pass along a few unpublished notes from my visit with Hennington.
— Although Hennington has played 526 Minnesota courses, he does not — nor should anyone — say there are 526 golf courses in Minnesota. That number is all but impossible to define. Hennington mentioned 519 as the number of golf courses by the Minnesota Golf Association’s count. In addition, there is a small minority of Minnesota courses that are not MGA members, there are courses Hennington played that have since shut down, and there are some establishments that may or may not be real golf courses, sort of like Pluto may or may not be a real planet. Hennington mentioned a visit he made to a piece of land in central Minnesota on which the owner had constructed a “golf course” that featured so-called re-creations of famous sites and battlegrounds, such as Bataan. Hey, whatever floats your military-industrial boat … but Hennington found it difficult to label that one a golf course.
— I asked Hennington about his favorite courses. Based on other stories that have been written about him, he has been reluctant to identify one, but he clearly had a strong attraction to The Wilderness, Jeff Brauer’s gem alongside Lake Vermilion in Tower. He also has said White Bear Yacht Club was a favorite, and after Thursday’s round he was highly complimentary of Town & Country. Also, he was a fan of the former side of one of the state’s love-it-or-hate-it courses: Mississippi Dunes in Cottage Grove. Hennington was impressed. “With six par 5s, six par 4s and six par 3s, there is an interesting dichotomy of holes,” Hennington said. “And diabolical green setups. It’s kind of a hidden gem, although I’m sure a lot of people hate it because it’s so tough.”
— Hennington has a “bottom 10” list, but in the interest of decorum, I didn’t ask him about it. Though I like to think that everything that calls itself a golf course has some redeeming quality, I can think of a few bottom-10 candidates.
— Hennington did identify a few holes he particularly enjoyed — in addition to the relatively unknown par-4 second at Oak Knolls in Red Lake Falls that’s mentioned in the PP story, he saluted the par-5 18th at the Arthur Hills-designed Chaska Town Course, with water all along the left.
— In addition to the challenge of getting on exclusive country clubs like Spring Hill, Woodhill and Town & Country, Hennington mentioned one other challenge: bridges. “I’m afraid of heights,” he said, “and there’s a couple of courses where you have to walk across suspension bridges, and I had to walk across them real fast with my eyes closed.” Take note, Silver Bay Golf Course — your walkways are not acrophobia-friendly. (No, that’s not a knock on Silver Bay GC. I’ve played it, and it’s a fine North Shore nine-holer.)
— Access to other private country clubs was not as daunting as the aforementioned. “Some of the courses, literally I wrote to and they said, sure, you can come,” Hennington said. “But the real exclusive ones, they weren’t like that.”
— My 20-minute visit with Hennington was too short. I could have listened for hours to his reflections on Minnesota golf. He conceded that what he has done was “a heck of an accomplishment,” and I might state it in even stronger terms. Well done, Art.
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As I mentioned on Twitter – great story, Joe! This follow-up was fun too. I exported my golf scores database and filtered out the non-Minnesota courses and came up with 125 courses total, so I guess I have a long ways to go… 🙂
Cheers, DK
Thanks for reading, David. That’s not a bad total — much better than mine. (I was off to a hot start until about 1990 rolled around.)