Puzzle pieces are all that remain of many of Minnesota’s lost golf courses.

But sometimes, even when pieces are missing, one finds a tidy little frame to hold things together.

A couple of weeks ago, I came across one old newspaper ad and one story that featured graphics showing the routing of two lost courses I wrote about in my first book, “Fore! Gone.” The courses were Antlers Park Golf Links (1925-38) in Lakeville and Hilltop Public Golf Links (1926-46) in Columbia Heights.

The newspaper items don’t offer much “new” information beyond what I wrote a decade ago, but I had never seen the Antlers Park routing displayed this clearly, and the Hilltop item is interesting on multiple fronts.

First courses first …

Antlers Park Golf Links was part of the highly popular Antlers Amusement Park, alongside the southeastern shore of Lake Marion in southern Lakeville. The ad shown here was published in the Minneapolis Tribune of June 28, 1925. The course’s first tournament was held two weeks later. The first hole headed west, the second returned east, and the rest of the nine roughly went out-and-back to the west, then back to the clubhouse, along what is now Kenwood Trail. The last hole was the longest, a par 5 of 380 yards (yes, par 5, 380). The open area in the bottom-left portion of the diagram would have been Lake Marion.

Though some available information is contradictory, it is almost certain Antlers Park was expanded to 18 holes in the 1930s. A former land owner told me there were notions — they likely never materialized — to add still nine more holes.

The Tribune ad states the course’s yardage as 2,500. A formal 18-hole scorecard from the 1920s states the yardages as 2,310 for the first nine and 2,190 for the second nine, for a total of 4,500.

Below is an aerial photo of the Antlers Park grounds from 1938, presumably from the golf course’s final year of existence. The road at the bottom of the photo is what is now 202nd Street Northwest. The prominent diagonal highway is Kenwood Trail, which was the northern and eastern border of the golf grounds. Part of the grounds today is Antlers Park Beach; most of it is residential development on the north side.

Many of the hole routings and greens are easily seen in this aerial photo.

Image from University of Minnesota’s John Borchert Map Library.

Antlers Park was one of Minnesota’s first privately owned, daily-fee courses, perhaps preceded only by Orono Public Golf Course in 1924. (I believe a club in northern Minnesota makes a similar claim, though the club’s history that I own suggests otherwise, and some Brainerd Lakes-area courses also might say the same.)

I’ll address the Hilltop Links next.