Minnesota’s lost courses: A quick correction

This week, numbers regarding Minnesota’s lost golf courses and attributed to me were used in a Star Tribune story about the golf industry. In the newspaper’s print editions and in its early online posting, an incorrect number regarding the number of lost courses since 2000 was published.

I appreciate Mark Craig of the Star Tribune having contacted me regarding the numbers. In the course of exchanging emails, I used some awkward phrasing and Mark misinterpreted or mis-transcribed a number.

The correct figures are:

— Since 2000, by my count, 47 golf courses in Minnesota have closed. (The number mentioned in the updated Star Tribune web site post, 44, was correct at the time. I have since added three more courses to that list).

— Since the first courses were established in Minnesota in the 1890s, 140 courses have been abandoned or, in a few cases, the clubs have significantly relocated. (That number, too, has changed as I came across more lost courses later in the week.)

— Since 2000, 21 courses in the seven-county Twin Cities metropolitan area have closed.

 

 

 

 

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Joe Bissen is a Caledonia, Minnesota, native and former golf letter-winner at Winona State University. He is a retired sports copy editor at the Minneapolis Star Tribune and St. Paul Pioneer Press and former sports editor of the Duluth News-Tribune. His writing has appeared in Minnesota Golfer and Mpls.St.Paul magazines. He lives in South St. Paul, MN. Joe's award-winning first book, "Fore! Gone. Minnesota's Lost Golf Courses 1897-1999," was released in December 2013, and a follow-up, "More! Gone. Minnesota's Lost Golf Courses, Part II" was released in July 2020. The books are most readily available online at Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble (bn.com). He continues to write about lost courses on this website and has uncovered more than 245 of them.

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