Tag Archives: lost golf courses

Valley View: The Hastings bridge

August 31, 2015Lost golf coursesHastings Country Club, lost golf coursesJoe Bissen

In eight days, school will be back in session at John F. Kennedy Elementary in Hastings, and the golf course will again be treated with reckless disregard and utter impunity.

First-graders will run screaming across the greens. Third-graders will jump and stomp and kick at the fairways as if they weren’t even there. Recess monitors will look away, as if nothing untoward were happening. Custodians, in the ultimate show of indifference, will toss garbage all over the George Nelson Historical Monument.

If they only knew …

… yeah, they would just keep doing it.

Understandable. Hey, all the kids see is a schoolyard. Play on.

A few others — very few anymore — also see an old golf course on the Kennedy grounds. Decades ago, a course known as Valley View — it went by other names later in life — occupied what is now the schoolyard, along with part of the current Smead Manufacturing site and undeveloped land to the south and east.

As a golf course site, this tract isn’t particularly notable. There are few elevation changes, no water and no overly distinguishable features. As a bridge, however, the site carries some significance.

And in Hastings, bridges (think Spiral Bridge, 1895-1951; “Big Blue” High Bridge, 1951-2013; and four-laner, 2013-present) are a big deal.

Valley View spanned all or parts of 31 golf seasons in Hastings and bridged a gap between a mostly unknown era of golf in the city, going all the way back to 1924, and the present day.

Oh, yeah. About that monument …

George Nelson, 84, and his friend Bill McNamara, 81, both Hastings residents and former golfers at the Valley View site, rode along one warm August afternoon as I went to visit the place. I turned south from 10th Street East onto Tyler Street. We hung a quick left into the main Kennedy Elementary parking lot and proceeded directly and purposefully across the first fairway, which, yes, makes me not one whit better than the kids who scamper across other sections of the old golf course.

We veered right, into the school’s east parking lot, and Nelson spotted the monument.

“I got a hole in one there,” he said. “Right there.”

“Right there,” at a corner of the east parking lot and on the exact site of the old No. 2 green at Valley View (and I mean exact; you can verify for yourself if you want to take the half-hour to compare old aerial photos to current ones), is a large, steel marker, paying tribute to the ace Nelson recorded 66 years ago while representing Hastings in a high school golf match.

The George Nelson Historic Monument … is a Dumpster.

The George Nelson Historical Dumpster -- or, put perhaps a bit more elegantly, the site of Nelson's 1949 hole in one at the original Hastings Country Club. — The George Nelson Historical Monument — or, put perhaps a bit more elegantly, the site, on the right, of Nelson’s 1949 hole in one on the second hole at the original Hastings Country Club.

The Dumpster was, of course, not there in 1949 when Nelson pulled a 6-ion from his bag, teed off from a slight rise by where the Kennedy playground now stands, aimed north, landed the ball just short of the green because, he said, that was the only way you could successfully play holes with sand greens, and watched it hop and roll into the hole.

(Aside: I wonder if Nelson is the only person alive to have posted two holes in one on lost Minnesota golf courses. Probably not, but give him credit: In 1951, he used a 2-wood to ace the sixth hole at the original — and now lost — site of Faribault Golf and Country Club. It was the first hole in one in 12 years at the course, which relocated 1956 to a site farther north.)

“We had so much fun out here,” Nelson said to McNamara, which was easy for him to say considering he once had the distinct pleasure of penciling in a “1” on his scorecard.

Nelson and McNamara spent the better part of an hour showing me around the grounds, pointing out where every hole was, 1 through 9, and reminiscing. They were, in effect, preserving the bridge.

———————

Hastings Gazette, July 25, 1924. Headline: Golf Course Assured For Fans Of City.

“Arrangements whereby the sporting element of Hastings will soon be able to gratify their desires for outdoor recreation, were revealed here this week in the announcement that the use of a natural golf course on the Nick Conzemius farm a mile west of the city has been secured by local enthusiasts of the sport.

“The proposed course, starting at the western boundary line of the city proper, extends for fully a mile in a westerly direction and abounds in hazards that should test the bility (sic) of golfers in this vicinity to their hearts’ content it is stated by those who have examined the proffered grounds.”

(Modern-day translation of overwrought prose: Fore!)

This original Hastings golf club, which was given no formal name in the newspaper story, had an initial membership of 25; membership fee was $1. The course consisted of nine holes. Best guess is that this location was near what is now Conzemius Park and Hastings Middle School.

Five years later, the club moved east, according to an entry in The Hastings Archives, by Richard B. Darsow. “1929: The Valley View Golf Course, formerly on the Nick Conzemius Farm, was moved and laid out on the Fred C. Gillitt farm, corner of Tenth and Tyler Streets.”

Most likely, the course became known as Valley View upon the move, not before it. And though Darsow linked Valley View and the Conzemius course, no connection is mentioned in any of five newspaper stories about Valley View’s opening that were forwarded to me by the Dakota County Historical Society and by Cindy Smith, curator of the Pioneer Room in Hastings’ City Hall.

Whomever first wrote about Valley View for the Hastings Gazette veritably swooned over the place, which wasn’t unusual for community newspaper writers of the day. I don’t know, maybe there was a set of shiny, new hickory-shafted MacGregors in it for the author.

“There are few golf courses in the country that excel the Valley View grounds in natural beauty or commanding location,” the Gazette reported on July 26, 1929, a month before the course officially opened. From the first green, the newspaper continued, “the golfer commands a magnificent view of both the Mississippi and Vermillion valley and the distant hills of Wisconsin, some of which are perhaps 10 miles away.” (The view is today obscured by building construction and tree canopies.)

Bluster aside, the Valley View site had staying power. The golf course lasted through 1936, when the club reorganized under the name Hastings Golf Club. It lasted through 1939, when 20 members re-formed under the name Hastings Country Club. It lasted through 1944, during a period when many other Minnesota courses were closing, thanks in part to a group of “war widows,” as the Gazette called them, who pitched in to help maintain the course. It lasted through 1947, when in another reorganization the club’s golfers bought the course from the Gillitt family and incorporated under the name Hastings Country Club (one 1947 newspaper clip refers to a renaming from Hastings Golf Club to Hastings Country Club at that point, but multiple clips through the 1940s refer to the club as Hastings Country Club. The incorporation, however, was a key rite of passage to Hastings CC in its present form). And the golf course lasted through 1949, when club members voted 24-12 not to sell the land to an interested private party.

But in 1957, feeling squeezed by residential growth and looking for room to perhaps expand to 18 holes, members began exploring potential new sites. They found one just over a mile to the southwest. On Sept. 2, 1958, the club purchased the John P. Zweber farm, and on May 1, 1961, Hastings Country Club opened with nine holes off Westview Drive, just a few blocks south of the old Conzemius Farm site. A second nine opened in 1966. The course has generally been held in high regard, and it has hosted many Minnesota Golf Association championship events.

If the Conzemius site is Hastings Lost Golf Course Version 1.0 and the Valley View site is Version 2.0, the current site is, let’s say, Version 2.01. Hastings CC has endured financial troubles in recent years and, after an announcement last fall that the club was ending operations and going up for sale, the course briefly lay dormant this spring before reopening for public play on May 13 and continuing through the present. I made multiple inquiries about its status, but none was answered, and so to the best of my knowledge Hastings Country Club remains for sale, its fate hanging in the balance.

Meanwhile, the Valley View site is a lost course. Gone, but 55 years later, not entirely forgotten.

——————

At the southeast corner of 10th and Tyler stands the Community Education building for Hastings Schools. This is the site of the former clubhouse for Valley View/Hastings Golf Club/Hastings Country Club. The clubhouse originally was a two-story home owned by Gillitt, judging by the 1929 Gazette story on Valley View. A 30- by 55-foot addition was completed in 1955.

Valley View clubhouse, photo dated Sept. 3, 1929 (photo property of Joe Bissen)

Just to the east, near the corner of 10th and Bailey, was Valley View’s first tee. The opening hole headed south, across land on which Kennedy Elementary was built (meaning kids now whimsically study science where golfers once carefully studied their approach shots), with the green near a corner of the Kennedy grounds, up a small hill and near the school’s playground.

McNamara grew up across 10th Street from the first tee, having moved there as a
12-year-old in 1946. “My aunt Martha Yanz got me started playing with her, and so a life of frustration was born!” he wrote in an email after our visit to the site.

Nos. 2 through 5 ran back and forth, parallel to one another, covering land on the south side of the current Kennedy grounds, including its ballfields. The green for the par-5 third hole was near the corner of 15th and Bailey; the fifth hole ran alongside a railroad spur line now operated by Canadian Pacific. The Veterans Home Bikeway/Mississippi River Regional Trail also runs alongside. “Five was a really good hole,” Nelson said. “Long and challenging, but a good hole.”

George Nelson, left, and Bill McNamara stand near the site of the tee box on the old second hole at Valley View/Hastings GC/Hastings CC. In the background are the Mississippi River bluffs on the Wisconsin side. — George Nelson, left, and Bill McNamara stand near the site of the tee box on the old second hole at Valley View/Hastings GC/Hastings CC. In the background are bluffs on the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi River.

Nos. 6 through 9 were on the east side of the railroad tracks. The sixth was a par 3 with a drop-off on the right; golfers near the sixth green and seventh tee could descend to the Vermillion River springs for a drink of water. The seventh, a short par 4, played north, near what is now a large Public Works hangar, and the eighth, an even shorter par 4, went south. As with any proper closing hole, the ninth returned home. Well, sort of. It started along the east side of the railroad tracks and headed north, parallel with the tracks, covering part of what now would be the Smead back parking lot, driveway and west side of the building. The green was maybe 25 yards from 10th Street and just a few feet from what is now the Smead driveway. From the ninth green to the clubhouse for post-round refreshments, a walk of more than 220 yards was required.

McNamara, left, and Nelson stand on the railroad tracks that divided the five western opening holes at Valley View from its four eastern closing holes. — Bill McNamara, left, and George Nelson stand on the railroad tracks that divided the five western opening holes at Valley View from its four eastern closing holes.

Nelson, who played the course almost daily, he said, remained a Hastings Country Club member when the new course opened in 1961. He is no longer a member there. McNamara did not make the transition to the current Hastings CC site, though he still plays area courses with a group of retirees.

“Living so close,” McNamara wrote in his email, “we kids made the course our own. Golf and ballgames in the summer, skating and sliding on the hills in the winter. My dad cut grass and did maintenance in his spare time, and even did a little golfing.”

Of the course, he wrote: “A short distance, by today’s standards, nine holes, with SAND GREENS, small, hard, oiled sand, flat as a pancake. No water hazards or sand traps, unless you count the greens!

“… It was our course, and we loved it.”

Aerial photo, Hastings Golf Club (the Valley View site), 1940. Photo courtesy of University of Minnesota's John Borchert Library. — Aerial photo, Hastings Country Club (the Valley View site), 1940. The corner of 10th and Tyler streets is at the upper-left corner of the photo; the Vermillion River is at the bottom-right corner. Photo courtesy of John R. Borchert Map Library at the University of Minnesota.

Author’s note: Finding every one of Minnesota’s lost golf courses has proved to be as implausible as winning the Grand Slam. I knew that would be the case when I started researching and writing about them in earnest three years ago, but still …

This is one in a series of posts that catch up with lost golf courses I missed in “Fore! Gone.” The best way to order the book now is through Amazon.com (from the seller named fivestarsales; that’s me) or to contact me directly.

Thanks for reading.

Rush City Country Club II: Want to see a redesign?

August 21, 2015Lost golf coursesChisago County, lost golf coursesJoe Bissen

In about 1940, by his recollection, Don Johnson clambered up the windmill on his family farm in northern Chisago County and snapped an aerial photograph of Rush City Country Club.

Well, semi-aerial.

The click of the shutter revealed part of the grounds of the now-lost golf course, which can be seen on a post elsewhere on this website (sorry; I can never get the linking function to work properly). One would be hard-pressed to call it an aerial photo, however, since it was taken at approximately the height Wilbur and Orv reached on some of their early Kitty Hawk forays.

Now Johnson has done himself one better.

Well, two.

Johnson, a Lindstrom resident who was responsible for 95 percent of the information in my first post about Rush City Country Club, this week relayed more information on the golf course founded in 1932 by his father, Art, and uncle Bill on their father’s farm a mile east of Rush City. Most notably, they featured a first in my five-plus years of researching
Minnesota’s lost golf courses: a routing of a lost course overlaid onto a vintage aerial
photo.

Cutting to the chase, here are Johnson’s reconstructions, first of the original Rush City CC
layout, then of the layout after it was redesigned in the late 1930s because of water issues in a low-lying area:

Click on the photos for closer, better looks. North is “up” on each. Highway 25 is the white line running northeast, bordering the Johnson farm and the golf course. The current Rush City Regional Airport landing strip is approximately where the large, light rectangular patch is, north of Highway 25. As with all aerial-photo views of lost courses with sand greens, the greens are particularly notable as very light, almost perfectly round circles. Base photos courtesy of Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

Though it might be folly to make
judgments off old aerials, what strikes me in these photos is how solid the original routing of Rush City Country Club appears to have been. Pete Carlson, who did the original design (he also designed Moose Lake Golf Club, 50 miles north of Rush City), used Rush Creek particularly well, designing at least three holes, and maybe up to five, using either side of the creek as a strategic element. The second and seventh holes appeared particularly well-designed, and I’ll bet pars on the latter were hard to come by. Given that the course was only 2,438 yards long, and that there likely was no more land available, the original layout appears well-conceived and challenging without offering any noticeably blatant “funky” holes. Only one nitpick: The par-threes were pretty similar in length: 181, 192, 198 and 175 yards.

Wish I could say the same about the revised layout, though the loss of the land that holes No. 1 and 2 were on surely destroyed any opportunity to match the original. The course was shortened by 607 yards and played to a par of only 29, with only three holes longer than 300 yards. Even more notably, holes No. 2 and 6 now shared the same green. “If you saw players approaching playing No. 6,” Johnson said, “you would hold your tee shot off No. 2. Never heard of a problem.”

The course survived until about 1954, Johnson reported, though never regaining the
popularity it enjoyed in the 1930s and early 1940s. I can’t help but think the forced revision of the course into tighter quarters had something to do with that.

In addition to the aerial reconstructions, Johnson, 87, passed along more memories:

“The golf course was developed and maintained with an Allis Chalmers Model U tractor purchased about 1933. This was the first farm tractor in the area on rubber tires. It might have been purchased with the golf course in mind, but Art and Bill Johnson also did custom threshing in the area, which required traveling many miles. The threshing machine also was on rubber for speedy travel at 12 mph.

“Allis Chalmers first added rubber tires to their tractor in 1933. They advertised by
displaying their tractor at the Minnesota State Fair with Barney Oldfield, a well-known race car driver, driving around the race track at 64 mph.

“A pull-behind road grader was acquired to level the greens during construction. The greens were oiled sand which would wash during rainstorms if not very level. The sand was hand screened and oiled with used motor oil. The greens were much softer than grass greens on other courses. …

“The bridges across Rush Creek were built using logs felled along the water. One log felled in the spring was so full of sap it would hardly float. The bridges were covered with
two-inch oak planks. I couldn’t drive a spike without bending it until my father said, ‘Don’t force it, just let the hammer do the work.’ Amazing, but no more bent spikes. …

“Golf clubs of that day had wooden shafts. My first set of clubs were broken discards which were glued together and the shafts wrapped with black linen thread. My first steel-shaft irons were acquired about 142 a $1.65 each. …

“When the clubhouse was operating as a dance hall, I was paid 25 cents a week to pick up empty bottles and keep the beer cooler filled. Sometimes as I walked behind the bar I would sample a bit of tap beer. A dice game called ‘Fourteen’ was played, customer against the bartender, and winners were paid one dollar in merchandise tokens or ‘chips,’ as they were called. These tokens were 25-cent brass-embossed with the Rush City
Country Club name.”

Johnson also passed along three photos of the building that served variously as farmhouse, clubhouse and dance hall. It was destroyed, he noted, in 1991 with a controlled burn by several fire departments.

What are they now?

February 23, 2014Lost golf courseslost golf courses, Minneapolis, Minnesota golf, St. PaulJoe Bissen

I get this one a lot.

In fact, this is the question I get more than any other (except, maybe, why don’t you start doing a little more around the house, dear?):

Those lost golf courses — what are they now?

At least a half-dozen people asked me that, or a variation thereof, last weekend at the Minnesota Golf Show. In fact, it’s the most-asked question I get from people who know I wrote a book about Minnesota’s lost golf courses.

The question is not so much about where the lost courses are now as what they are.

My answers have been general up to now — Minnesota’s lost golf courses are now parking lots, pastures, pavements. But, OK, allow me to be specific.

I took a run through my book this afternoon and came up with these numbers on what the lost courses are today. I divided the results into two categories — primary use or uses of the modern-day site, and secondary use or uses.

Here they are (some lost courses weren’t counted because I don’t know their exact current site uses):

Primary modern-day use of lost-course sites

Residential development: 22 courses
Farm/rural: 16
Parkland (state parks, nature centers, etc.): 6
Undeveloped urban or suburban land: 6
Business: 4
Athletic fields: 1
Lodge / resort: 2
Rural or semi-rural housing: 1
Airport runway: 1
Prison grounds: 1

Seconday modern-day use of lost-course sites

School grounds: 7
Business: 5
Residential development: 4
Highway: 3
Senior housing / care: 2
Undeveloped urban or suburban land: 1

For the most part, these modern-day sites could hardly be less glamorous, such as the current undeveloped site of the old Joyner’s / Brooklyn Park Golf Course, shown below:

Some of the residential sites have their appeal, such as that on the old Bryn Mawr Golf Club in Minneapolis, below:

Only two sites, though, stand out: the former Nopeming pitch-and-putt course on the grounds of the former Joyce Estate on Trout Lake north of Grand Rapids:

and the former Whitewater Valley Golf Course, in Whitewater State Park, near St. Charles in southeastern Minnesota (the golf course grounds is that area of green grass between the bluffland):

Another four bite the dust

November 26, 2013Lost golf coursesclosed golf courses, lost golf courses, Minnesota golfJoe Bissen

This post is back under its original title, with some editorial commentary included. The list of lost courses since 2000 can now be found at this link: Minnesota’s lost courses since 2000: The list.

“Modern” lost golf courses aren’t really my strong suit. My focus the past four years and in writing “Fore! Gone.” has been to find courses that were abandoned before the year 2000 arrived. The final curtain, using that parameter, belonged to Rich Acres in Richfield, which witnessed its last four-putt in December 1999 before turning into an airport runway. (And don’t try to catch me with a technicality over when the millennium ended. That has been debated for years, with no definitive answer evident. I’m going with Dec. 31, 1999, as the end of the millennium, whether anyone likes it or not.)

Since then, dozens of Minnesota golf courses have gone the way of dinosaurs. It has been part of a nationwide phenomenon. Golf chugged along in terms of popularity and new-course construction for years, with a particularly strong head of steam in the early 1990s, and without regard to a minority of voices who were sounding warnings of declining participation. It was a supply-and-demand phenomenon. The supply curve was going up; the demand curve was going down; and far too many golf-course developers didn’t anticipate that the twain would unhappily meet. That happened in about 2000, and courses soon began closing.

Since then, the naysayers have ruled. “Golf courses are losing money.” (Yes, many of them are. No arguing that point. And an underreported minority are doing fine.) “Golf takes too long, and it’s too expensive.” (In many cases, true and true. In others, not so much.) “Golf is too hard.” (What, you want me to walk your ball up the fairway another hundred yards, past the bunker fronting the green? It’s not supposed to be easy. That’s part of the game’s often-maddening beauty.) “Golf is dying.” (Give me a break. Every person who types that phrase will die before golf will.)

OK, I’ll shut up and resume the original post from autumn 2013.

Say goodbye to:

Hudson Golf Club: Just across the St. Croix River and the Minnesota border in the Wisconsin city of Hudson, this was the city’s private course for many years. It was established in 1955. It was bought in early 2010 by Hanson Brothers Golf, which also owns and operates River Falls Golf Club, but the Hansons shut down Hudson GC during the 2013 season, saying it wasn’t economically viable. Plans are to turn it into commercial development. Predictably, there is controversy in Hudson over the fate of the site — not so much that the golf course is gone as over what it will become.

Looking at the place only from its perimeters — the property is now posted with dozens of “no trespassing” signs — it looked like a very good golf course site, with elevation changes, water and a variety of trees. The photo above is, I believe, of the course’s southwesternmost hole. No, I didn’t trespass. I took it from a high point of a store parking lot that backs up to the property.

———————————————————————————

Parkview: A cruel joke, or did somebody in Eagan press some mysterious rewind button?

In the early 2000s, a variety of parties in Eagan argued over the fate of Carriage Hills Golf Course, a shortish, 18-hole, public layout that, the owners said, had become unprofitable. Some wanted the course to remain open, some wanted the course to become green space, and some — primarily the course owners — wanted to develop the land. The course closed in 2005, and the accompanying heated debate went all the way to the Minnesota Supreme Court. Ultimately, the land became residential development.

Parkview became Carriage Hills Redux: Same city, similar-style course (18 holes, public, par 63), same scenario (a money-losing proposition for the owners) and same arguments (stay open, go green or plow it under and build homes). The battle was perhaps a bit less contentious than the Carriage Hills battle, but it still stirred emotion. Parkview, which opened in 1966, stayed open for part of the 2013 season before closing.

Incidentally, this three-way tug-of-war between owners, green-space boosters and golfers with emotional ties to the embattled courses is nothing new in Minnesota. Fifty years ago, the same happened in St. Louis Park, as Westwood Hills Golf Course lived out its final days. That course’s remarkable history is covered at length in “Fore! Gone.”

The photo atop this post is from when Parkview was operational. It was contributed by a woman who lives in a home adjacent to the former course. I visited there briefly last week, during a light snowfall, and took the photo just above (click any of these photos for closer looks), while land-movers were razing all evidence of tees and greens and cul-de-sacking away. Incidentally, the aforementioned woman was chagrined — not upset, I wouldn’t say, but chagrined — that her home will be closer to a new home than any other in the neighborhood. The houses will lie 105 feet from each other; zoning laws, she said, require a 100-foot separation.

More background on Parkview can be found in this St. Paul Pioneer Press story: http://www.twincities.com/ci_23143189/eagan-parkview-golf-club-will-reopen-shorter-season

——————————————————————-

Red Oak and Lakeview: The former, a nine-hole course, served golfers in the Mound and Lake Minnetonka areas for 58 years. The latter, an 18-hole layout just 500 yards away, lived to be 45. Both courses were owned by the Wenkstern family. Neither will be open for tee times in 2014.

A tribute to Red Oak and Lakeview can be read at The Laker and The Pioneer website:

http://lakerpioneer.com/2013/08/19/lakeview-and-red-oak-golf-courses-sold-to-developer/

The old haunt – almost

October 9, 2013Lost golf courseslost golf courses, Minnesota, St. Louis Park, Westwood HillsJoe Bissen

A trip to the western suburbs yesterday took me, predictably, to my new favorite spot to visit: Westwood Hills Nature Center in St. Louis Park. It’s a great place for a hike through the woods along Westwood Lake; it’s also an excellent spot to take kids to learn about nature. Doesn’t hurt that there’s no admission charge. (The turn-of-the-seasons photo was taken from the road that leads into the nature center. Click on it for a larger view. Another photo, below, shows a red-tailed hawk that the Westwood staff tends to; it is blind in one eye and likely wouldn’t survive if it were released.)

Predictably, I suppose, I had an ulterior motive in making the visit. Two of them, really: A, I wanted to drop off a flyer advertising the impending publication of “Fore! Gone.” at the nature center, which was built on the site of what I’m calling “the king” of lost golf courses, Westwood Hills Country Club / Golf Course; and, B, every time I set foot on the grounds, I learn something.

What I learned yesterday: The old golf course grounds might be haunted.

Emphasis here should be on the might have been. For one thing, there is the highly debatable notion that dead guys got caught in the giant afterlife linen closet in the sky and donned white sheets cuz it’s all they could find to wear and then came back to worldly places with which they were familiar. For another, as it turns out, The Haunting in northwest St. Louis Park, if it really does exist, doesn’t appear to exist on the old Westwood Hills golf grounds.

Still, it was amusing to ponder, if only for the hour or so it took to look at old aerial maps in an attempt to fortify or refute the “haunting” notion.

Someone I met at the nature center referred me to a page from the 2002 book “Ghost Stories of Minnesota” by Gina Teel. Under the heading “Fox Farmer Phantom,” Teel wrote:

“The ghost of a fox farmer is said to haunt Lamplighter Park in St. Louis Park. The eerie figure is set aglow by a spectral lantern that lights the path he is doomed to walk for all eternity.”

Cue the creepy organ music, and continue:

“Residents in surrounding neighborhoods have for years claimed to see the ghostly shape at night walking on the other side of the pond.”

I also was told yesterday that there was indeed once a fox farm in that area of St. Louis Park, and it was speculated that the fox farm might have been on part of the former golf course grounds. So when I got home, I turned on all of the lights as brightly as possible, armed myself with the latest anti-ghost technology (I know; there’s no such thing) and checked to see if the old fox farm or the current Lamplighter Park occupied the Westwood Hills golf grounds.

Darn it; that was disappointing. Looks to me like the northern edge of the golf course grounds in that specific area was Franklin Avenue/Westmoreland Lane, which actually is a path that now appears to divide Lamplighter Park from the grounds of St. Louis Park Junior High School. The junior high rests on what used to be the golf course; Lamplighter Park, I am pretty sure, does not.

So the ghost story, at least as it relates to Westwood Hills Golf Course, appears to have been debunked. Although I suppose it’s plausible to wonder if more than one twilight golfer at Westwood Hills was scared half to death not by the notion of standing over a 5-foot putt for bogey but rather over a 5-foot putt with the Bogey Man — the real thing — 100 yards in the distance, rounding up his spectral foxes.