Category Archives: Just plain old golf

Minnesota’s lost golf courses, since 2000: The list of 85

Since 2000, by my count, 86 golf courses in Minnesota have closed and/or been abandoned (I am continually updating that number as I find more courses, or as they close down). This list, last updated on Aug. 2, 2022, is posted without commentary. Feel free to respond with additions, corrections or opinions.

Thank you to the Minnesota Golf Association for information on some of these courses.

Afton Alps Golf Course, Denmark Township (1990-2019)

Albert Lea Country Club (1912-2006)

All Seasons, Cottage Grove (1993-ca. 2006)

Apple Valley Golf Course, Apple Valley (1974-2019)

B&V Par 3, Plymouth (1962-circa 2006)

Beaver Creek GC, Beaver Creek (2003-2007)

Begin Oaks, Plymouth (2000-2014)

Bentwood, Climax (1987-circa 2019)

Birch Bay, Fairview Township (near Lake Shore) (1965-2015)

Black Bear Golf Complex, Backus (1998-2017)

Black Bear Golf Course, Backus (1998-unknown)

Brainerd Country Club/Pine Meadows (1920s-2004)

The Bridges of Mounds View (1995-2006)

Brockway, Rosemount (1935-2004)

Carriage Hills, Eagan (1967-2004)

Cedar Hills, Eden Prairie (1940-2000)

City View, Cold Spring (1999-2015)

Country Air, Lake Elmo (closed circa 2016)

Countryside, Shafer (2001-circa 2013)

Country View, Maplewood (1930-2004)

Deer Meadows, Cambridge (2000-2008)

Driftwood Golf & Fitness, Clearwater (1994-2019)

Elm Creek, Plymouth (1960-2013)

Fair Havens, Park Rapids (2000-circa 2015)

Fairways at Howard’s Barn, Fifty Lakes (1968-circa 2015)

Far Par Golf, Duluth (unknown-circa 2018)

Fort Ridgely State Park Golf Course, Fairfax (1927-2017)

Fred Richards Executive Course, Edina (1956-2014)

French Lake Open Golf, Dayton (1985-ca. 2015)

Fritz’s Resort Golf Course, Nisswa (1972-2006)

Greenwood, Wyoming (1985-unknown)

The Greens of Howard Lake (1995-2015)

Hampton Hills, Plymouth (1960-2003)

Hayden Hills, Dayton (1972-2018)

Hidden Creek, Owatonna (1996-2009)

Higbee’s, Wahkon (closed 2013)

Hillcrest Golf Club, St. Paul (1921-2017; originally called Lakeview)

Holiday Park, Hayward (1966-2011)

Hollydale, Plymouth (1965-2019)

Irish Hills, Pine River (1985-2009)

Ironman, Detroit Lakes (1960-2016)

KateHaven, Blaine (1981-2014)

Lakeview, Orono (1956-2013)

Links of Byron (1994-ca. 2013)

Lone Pine, Prior Lake (closed circa 2003; I hadn’t previously listed this because the property became the site of The Meadows at Mystic Lake. But Lone Pine shut down, and The Meadows was a complete overhaul of the Lone Pine course.)

Lost River, Gonvick (circa 1958-circa 200)

Maplebrook, Stewartville (1974-unknown)

Maple Hills, Maplewood (1954-2003)

Meadowbrook, Mabel (opened 1984; shown below, 2014 photo, after course’s closing, with the former kidney-shaped ninth green in the foreground and clubhouse in the background, courtesy of Ross Himlie Photography in Rushford) mabel

Meadow Lakes, Rochester (1998-2012)

Meadow Links, Hutchinson (1999-ca. 2015)

Meadowwoods, Minnetonka (1991-ca.-2004)

Minnetonka Country Club, Shorewood (1916-2014)

Mississippi Dunes, Cottage Grove (1995-2017)

Mulligan Masters/Lake Elmo Pines, Lake Elmo (circa 2000-08)

Oakdale Par 3 (1994-2009)

Orchard Gardens, Burnsville (1967-2004)

Parkview, Eagan (1969-2013)

Pine River Country Club, Pine River (1981-2010)

Ponderosa, Glyndon (1962-2015)

Ponds at Battle Creek, Maplewood (2004-2021)

Prairie View Golf Links, Worthington (1983-2015)

Red Oak, Minnetrista (1969-2013)

Red Rock Golf Course, Hoffman (1932-2017)

Rich Valley, Rosemount (shown below, October 2021; 1998-2021)


Ridgewood Golf Course, Longville (1987-2016)

River Bend Golf Club, East Grand Forks (second iteration 1995-20022)

Rock Pile, Dent (1999-2013)

Rodina, Alexandria (1998-circa 2015)

Rolling Green Fairways, Fairmont (1976-2003)

Rolling Hills, Pelican Rapids (circa 1970-2016)

Root River Country Club, Spring Valley (1962-2014)

Sanbrook Golf Club, Isanti (1995-2001)

Sauk Centre Country Club (1921-2013) (Note: This course has reopened as Old Course Sauk Centre, partially rerouted and redesigned.)

Silver Springs, Monticello (1974-2009)

Stillwater Oaks (formerly Sawmill), 1983-2019

Stone Bridge, Otsego (1999-2009)

Tartan Park, Lake Elmo (opened 1965, closed December 2015. The grounds have been converted into The Royal Golf Club, which opened in 2018, but it was a total rebuild of Tartan Park, so I’m considering Tartan Park to be a lost course.)

Thompson Oaks, West St. Paul (1997-2017)

Town & Country Golf Course, Moorhead (1963-2007)

Valley View, Belle Plaine (1992-2015)

Wedgewood, Walker (established 1962) reopened as Moonlight Bay, notation made May 2021

Wendigo, Grand Rapids (1995-2011)

Wilderness Hills, Holyoke (1995-unknown)

Wilderness Trail Golf & Village (formerly Chippewa National), Longville, 1987-2016

Woodbury Golf & Fitness (1975-2003)

Woodland Creek, Andover (1989-2008)

 

Minnesota golf: More rounds played

Looks like 2015 will go down as a good year for golf in Minnesota.

I received the following email in my work inbox this week, reporting that rounds of golf played in Minnesota through September is up almost 10 percent over last year. The source of the data is reputable. A few observations follow. (Photo above is from Majestic Oaks in Ham Lake, October 2015.)

———–

“PGA PerformanceTrak, a golf data collection and benchmarking service from The PGA of America (@pgaofamerica), reveals that golf rounds played have increased by (+9.5%) across the state of Minnesota, Year-to-date through the end of September, when compared with 2014 data.

“In addition to rounds played, other key performance indicators such as Golf Fee Revenue (+7.9%), Merchandise Revenue (+4.5%), and Food & Beverage Revenue (+8.5%), have also seen an increase throughout the state year-to-date through the end of September 2015, when compared with 2014 data. This information is based on responses from nearly 50 facilities statewide.

“The golf marketplace is trending positively nationwide in 2015, with nationwide golf rounds up (+2.0%), Golf Fee Revenue up (+1.4%), Merchandise Revenue Up (+4.4%) and Food & Beverage Revenue up (+4.6%) based on responses from approximately 2,500 facilities across the U.S.”

—————–

Observations:

— About the source of the data: According to the PGA of America’s website, “PerformanceTrak in Cooperation with NGCOA (National Golf Course Owners Association of America) is the largest single source of rounds played data in the industry. Primary contributors of this monthly data are PGA Professionals and NGCOA member(s) along with other allied partners.”

— On its face, it’s good news for the golf industry in Minnesota. Good for golfers, too: The fact that the increase in rounds played outpaces increases in measures of revenue suggests that course owners and managers are trying to make their venues more affordable. Over and over, golfers have cited cost of play as a key factor in why they have played less golf in the past decade.

A Sept. 27 Star Tribune story went into detail about the increase-in-rounds trend, citing July numbers from PerformanceTrak. The story confirms that cost of play has decreased, reporting that “Minnesota’s median 18-hole greens fee was $26.68, below the $28.28 recorded for 2014 …”

The full Star Tribune story is here: http://strib.mn/1HMPGPD (sorry, I never can get that direct-link coding to work). It’s a good story that balances the positive numbers with the sobering reality that the golf industry remains significantly challenged. Check out the reader comments on the story, too; they are always revealing.

— As mentioned prominently in the Star Tribune story, the fact that we had a terrific run of weather — deserved compensation over a few recent hellacious weather seasons — has much to do with the rise in rounds played. Also, considering how nice October and early November have been, it’s likely that increases in year-end figures will be even greater, across the board.

— Can’t help myself here. The Star Tribune’s story is headlined “Out of the rough: Golf’s exceptional year.” Note to headline writers (and my newspaper is as guilty as any): Can we please stop with the hackneyed clichés about the golf business (“out of bounds,” “in the rough,” etc.). I’ve read far too many of them. They drive me up a wall.

— The data shouldn’t be interpreted as evidence that the business of golf is in recovery after a downward trend of more than a decade. These numbers are from one season only and don’t necessarily constitute a trend. Anecdotally, I have heard of at least a half-dozen Minnesota courses with serious financial issues, and I’m certain there are more than that. I have little doubt that there will be more attrition in the near future, more course closings on the horizon. On the other hand, I know only of one course that’s closing at the end of this season — Tartan Park in Lake Elmo — so that’s a good sign. Right?

Golf up Minnesota 65, Part 1

Minnesota mass transit has its Green Line: an 11-mile light-rail route along University Avenue in Minneapolis and St. Paul. There are no golf courses in sight along the route, unless you include the old Tom Vardon-designed Quality Park lighted pitch-and-putt course (1920s and ’30s) in St. Paul that is now occupied by the parking lot of the Midway Target store.

Minnesota golf, conversely, has its Line of Greens: a 50-mile stretch of pars 3, 4 and 5 along State Highway 65 from Minneapolis and continuing northward, to and through the city of Cambridge.

Hop in the car at the northern border of northeast Minneapolis, put your head on a swivel and stop texting and driving if you want to catch all the nearby golf courses or signs pointing toward them:

Columbia (Minneapolis), Victory Links and TPC Twin Cities (Blaine), Majestic Oaks (Ham Lake), Viking Meadows and Hidden Haven (East Bethel), Sanbrook (Isanti) and Purple Hawk (Cambridge). That doesn’t include the outliers, all of them likewise within three miles of 65: Bunker Hills (Coon Rapids), The Refuge (Oak Grove) and Grandy Nine (Grandy).

That makes eight courses within a mile of  Minnesota 65, plus three more just a few more turns of the odometer away. Parsed another way, your choice of 243 holes of golf — not to mention driving ranges, a putting course and a learning center. (The Blue Ribbon Pines Disc Golf Course in East Bethel doesn’t count.) Not a bad day trip from the Twin Cities — just drive up 65 and find a course you haven’t played before.

I made an early October day trip up Minnesota 65 that featured stops at four courses on the Line of Greens. It also featured zero birdies, zero pars, bogeys, doubles or those dreaded “others.” I was curious about visiting courses I hadn’t seen before, to be sure, but I was more curious about other matters. If you’ve spent even a few minutes on this website or know about my infatuation/obsession/how-dare-you-call-it-a-fetish for a certain golf-related topic, you’ll know where I’m going with this. But that’s for subsequent posts.

For now, a few photos and a little info  on some (not all!) of the courses along the Minnesota 65 Line of Greens. I’m not offering anything earth-shattering, partly because it’s tough to write about courses you haven’t played before. (Why do it, then? I dunno — just take the info and comments at face value.) Information on greens fees and the like are taken from the club’s websites or the Minnesota Golf Association’s 2015 online course directory. Greens fees are standard weekday rates.

Columbia, Minneapolis

columbia2015
The par-3 17th at Columbia, just a little to the southeast of what used to be Sandy Lake (see below)

Holes: 18, plus driving range/learning center
Greens fee: $28
Established: 1919
Architect: William Clark, a Scotsman who also designed Gross (formerly Armour) in Minneapolis, Oak Ridge in Hopkins and — lost-course references a requirement when possible — the former Chisago Golf Club in Chisago City.
Notable: Part of the Columbia grounds used to be a lake — Sandy Lake, a shallow, reportedly unattractive body of water that dried up early in the 20th century. Sandy Lake’s successor of sorts is a water hazard between Columbia Golf Club’s 11th and 12th holes.

My original intent was to post only one photo from each course I visited or had photos from. But the view from a couple of spots on Columbia was so impressive on Oct. 22 that I had to take a post a couple more. They’re from my Android and cropped, so they might not look so great when expanded. But they are what they are.

First tee, Columbia -- par 4, 365 yards
Above: first tee, Columbia — par 4, 365 yards; below: approach to the 10th green, par 4, 330 yards

ColumbiaNo10

TPC of the Twin Cities, Blaine

The par-4, 417-yard ninth hole at TPC Twin Cities (2014 photo)
The par-4, 417-yard ninth hole at TPC Twin Cities (2014 photo)

Holes: 18
Greens fee: The course is private, but its green fee is listed as $139
Established: 2000
Architect: Arnold Palmer, with Tom Lehman as design consultant
Notable: The course is home to the Champions Tour’s 3M Championship. That’s common knowledge, but what strikes me every time I’m there is that a course that’s darn hard for any weekend golfer is such a pushover for the pros. True, the 3M setup doesn’t call for an ardent guardianship of par, but the winning scores of the past 10 champions have totaled 185 under par. Never get into a skins game with those guys.

Majestic Oaks, Ham Lake

DSC06810
No. 1, Majestic Oaks Signature Course. par 5, 485 yards

Holes:  45 (Signature 18, Crossroads 18, Executive Nine)
Greens fee: Signature $25.95, Crossroads $20.95, Executive $9.95
Established: 1965, as the nine-hole Golden Tee Country Club. Re-established as Majestic Oaks Country Club in 1972 with 18 holes; expanded to 45 holes in 1991 with the addition of the Executive Nine and the South Course (now known as the Crossroads Course)
Architects: Charles Maddox designed the original 18; Garrett Gill and George B. Williams designed the Crossroads Course.
Notable: Suburban sprawl here (that is intended as a purely good-natured observation). Besides 45 holes of golf, Majestic Oaks features the 46th Hole Bar & Grill, a wedding-and-events center, a dinner theater, and even a winter boot hockey league operating out of the metal shed next to the pro shop that doubles as a warming house. More nuggets, taken from “Under the Majestic Oaks,” published in 2012: The three courses have a total of 118 bunkers, 72 of them on the Signature Course. Water comes into play on 31 holes. Mark Mueller had won 12 men’s club championships as of 2012.
One more thing: The person who founded Majestic Oaks as Golden Tee in 1965 has a direct and important connection to a lost course on the Highway 65 corridor. More on that in a week or two.

Viking Meadows, East Bethel

vikingmeadows18
First hole, Viking Meadows, 344 yards, par 4

Holes: 18 (if you go online and see a reference to an executive nine, ignore it. That course was shut down a few years ago.)
Greens fee: $22
Established: 1989
Architect: Ron Olson (source: GolfDigest.com)
Notable: I got nothing. Sorry, but really almost nothing at all. I had time to spend only 10 minutes on the grounds and saw trees, relatively few bunkers and fairly ordinary greensites. That’s neither criticism nor endorsement. Would be glad to hear from someone who knows more about the place.

Sanbrook, Isanti

sanbrook
Toward the ninth green at Sanbrook. I think. Maybe. Could be wrong. Just not a lot of definition out there.

Holes: 27 (18-hole course and executive nine)
Greens fee: $22
Architect: Lyle O. Kleven
Established: 1995
Notable: Sorry, but I kinda flinched there when I had to type “architect” followed by an actual name. Hey, I really would rather not denigrate, but this looked a lot like 18 flagsticks cut into a moribund plot of land. The only definition I noticed was occasional routing around some marshland. I suspect that “utilitarian” was the intent, though, and that’s fine. Every golfer’s appetite is different. Here is one online review: “Beginner golfers can practice their technique on the short, flat … layout without worrying about obstacles frustrating them.” Knock yourself out, then. Kudos deserved on the autumn rate of $20 including cart, assuming I heard that right on my stop there.

Hidden Haven, East Bethel

No. 18, Hidden Haven, par 4, 328 yards

Holes: 18
Greens fee: $29
Architect: Mike Krogstad
Established: 1988; nine additional holes in 1999
Notable: My last, short stop on my way back from conducting old business, if you catch my drift, in the Cambridge-Isanti area.
This course intrigued me, even if based only on a 15-minute visit. It shot to the top of the list of courses I would most like to play in the Highway 65 corridor (Columbia is up there, too, and I’ve heard good things about Purple Hawk though have never played there). Anyway, a superficial look at Hidden Haven, plus a subsequent look via Google’s aerial photos, left me impressed. The nine on the east side of Polk Street appears fairly open, albeit with some bunkers and water. The nine on the west side of Polk appears more tree-lined.
If the greensite on No. 18 is any indication, course designer Mike Krogstad (an occasional golfer who designed only Hidden Haven and died in 2008 at age 49) did an excellent job of balancing playability and challenge. Much more thought appeared to go into the design of this course than some others I visited. From the aerial photos, the bunkering looks both varied and well-plotted. At 5,968 yards off the back tees (par 71), length probably is a drawback for a medium-to-long hitter, but I think a geezer-bunter like me could have a good time at Hidden Haven. At least until the inevitable dumping of a sleeve of balls with three fat wedges into a pond.

Glenwood Park, Minneapolis, circa 1917 – and a golf tangent

GlenwoodPC

This is, admittedly, something of a neither-here-nor-there post, considering I usually write about golf. But tangentially – one tangent reaching about seven-tenths of a mile to the north, another a similar distance to the east – I ran across something today that struck some chords.

Skimming through a box of postcards at an estate sale in Plymouth, I spotted the card pictured above. The inscription reads: “1679. Birch Pond, Glenwood Park, Minneapolis.” The postcard was originally issued by the Board of Park Commissioners, Minneapolis, and the photo was taken by Hibbard & Company.

Birch Pond still exists. Glenwood Park does, too, though you might not recognize it by that name. The park, near the western edge of Minneapolis, was established in 1889 and originally named Saratoga Park. The name was changed to Glenwood Park in December 1890 and then, after further parkland was acquired by the city of Minneapolis, to Theodore Wirth Park in 1935.

Similarly, Birch Pond was not always Birch Pond. It was known as Devil’s Pond until getting officially renamed by the Minneapolis park board on June 6, 1910. (Hey, I don’t know any of this stuff off the top of my head. All info was culled from posts on Minneapolis Parks websites and/or by the city’s estimable parks historian, David C. Smith.)

I bought the postcard because A) I found it to be an intriguing, century-old piece of Minneapolis history, B) I knew it had tangential connections to golf and C) because it was cheap — 25 cents after the usual second-day, 50-percent-off estate-sale discount.

About the tangents:

Most likely, there were no golf courses in the area at the time the photo for this postcard was taken. (The photo presumably was taken after 1910, when the pond was renamed Birch Pond, but before September 1917, the postmark on the back of the card.) But nearby, there was one recently departed course and, probably, another waiting in the wings.

Two-thirds of a mile to the east-southeast, in Minneapolis’ Bryn Mawr neighborhood, on and near the intersection of modern-day Penn Avenue and Cedar Lake Road, lay the ruins of the recently closed Bryn Mawr Golf Club, which shut down in 1910 as residential growth in western Minneapolis squeezed it out of existence. (Bryn Mawr GC, in two separate incarnations, had spawned Minikahda Golf Club in late 1898 and spring 1899 and Interlachen Country Club in 1910. It’s covered in Chapter 29 of my book, titled “Minneapolis Mystery.”)

And seven-tenths of a mile north of Birch Pond lay the land upon which Theodore Wirth Golf Course would be built, starting in 1916 and featuring clay tees and sand greens. (Best guess is that the postcard predates 1916 and the opening of the Wirth course, though that’s strictly a guess.) Only the course was not known at the time as Wirth; it was known as Glenwood until 1938.

If all the naming and renaming and opening and closing is confusing to you, don’t feel alone. I can never keep this stuff straight without thinking seriously about creating flowcharts and databases and whatnot for reference’s sake. Don’t even get me started on the original name of Bryn Mawr Golf Club, or I might have to go into some long-winded discussion about which Minneapolis Golf Club was which, and where it started, and where it ended up, and about a hundred thousand more tangents and permutations.

A better suggestion: Log off the computer and go play nine or 18 at the former Glenwood Park. The memory of Theodore Wirth would thank you.

Back in time II: Town & Country Club, 1899

towncc

A few weeks ago, I posted an old photo of Town & Country Club, from the 1898 book “City of Homes,” and speculated that it might be Minnesota’s first golf photograph with a verifiable date. Is it? Was it? I’m still stumped, but I haven’t heard of or come across anything verifiably older.

Last week, however, I Googlified (that’s a short, highly technical term for “discovering via the Internet”) a handful of photos that we’ll call close runners-up, plus an interesting and very old account of T&CC, Minnesota’s first golf course.

Times — and views — were different then, judging by the description of what was then the second hole:

“From a point near the green of this hole may be obtained a wonderfully beautiful view of the whole of Minneapolis and the country surrounding it on each of three sides and for more than fifteen miles in every direction, as well as of the great bend of the Mississippi River.”

So states a paragraph in “Golf,” a magazine touted as the “official bulletin, U.S.G.A.,” in its January 1899 issue published out of New York. That issue features St. Paul’s Town & Country Club as its opening story, immediately following a section of ads for the likes of Slazenger golf balls, John D. Dunn’s “celebrated One-Piece Drivers and Brasseys,” and winter vacations in Bermuda.

The story is simply titled “The Town and Country Club of St. Paul.” It features 17 paragraphs of information about the golf course’s organization and layout (only nine holes in 1899; it expanded to 18 in 1907). The story also features four photographs, leading with a full-page photo of the clubhouse and ladies’ putting green and including a panoramic photo from No. 9, a hole dubbed “Westward Ho!”

As much as I would like to post the photos here, I don’t believe Google would approve, at least not if I interpret their rules of use correctly. But if you’re a fan of way-early golf in Minnesota, the story is worth a look. You can find it here: Town and Country Club, St. Paul

Oh … what’s with the photo at the top of the post? It’s an old Town & Country Club candy dish I found last fall at a Twin Cities estate sale, with the modern 18-hole layout featured on it.

And below is a photo of modern-day T&CC, taken at the very dawn of the 2015 golf season:

tc2015