Tag Archives: Minnesota golf

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

April 10, 2016Golf history, Lost golf courseslost golf courses, Minnesota golfJoe Bissen

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)

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)

Golf up Highway 65, Part III: Bar L Ranch Club (and waterslide)

November 5, 2015Lost golf coursesIsanti County, Minnesota golfJoe Bissen

Fifty years ago in rural Isanti County, there was a golf-and-entertainment establishment that had its somewhat lengthy title pretty much covered. The Bar L Ranch Club featured, all to varying degrees, bar, L, ranch and club.

I know. If you read the title of this post, you might be wondering: What about the waterslide?

As they say, wait for it …

Bar L Ranch Club was both golf course and supper club — more prominently the latter, based on a half-dozen conversations I had with people who remembered the place. The club was situated 1.7 miles northwest of downtown Isanti, in Bradford Township, with the clubhouse/restaurant/dance hall near the corner of what is now County Highway 70 and 297th Avenue Northwest. The golf course, a nine-holer with grass greens, began near the clubhouse and headed west, then south, at one point tracking within 100 yards of the west bank of the Rum River, then heading back on a return trip to the clubhouse. (Its apparent out-and-back routing isn’t significant in a golfing sense, but I can’t say I’ve seen many like it on nine-hole courses in Minnesota.)

2013 aerial photo of Isanti and area to the northwest. The former Bar L Ranch Club grounds are within the red circle. Photo courtesy of Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

As for the “L” in Bar L, I never was told by anyone what it meant, and — journalistic blunder here — I must say I failed to ask. But my presumption is that “Bar L” was a hat tip to its owner-founder.

Ray Larowe founded Bar L Ranch Club in the mid- to late 1950s. He had a decent-sized, two-story building in place; the property it was on had served at the Johnson Sisters Rest Home (capacity: 12) from the early 1930s through the early 1950s.

Larowe, by all indications, was an idea man, a forward thinker. His idea in this case was to turn the old rest home and its grounds into a golf course and supper club, then develop the surrounding area.

“Ray began work on a nine-hole golf course and remodeled the former rest home into a restaurant,” a 1993 Isanti County Traveler story reported. “He platted a housing development along the river called River Ridge, providing access from the golf course and restaurant by building a circular road through the potential development. (That road is now known as River Ridge Road Northwest and 293rd Avenue Northwest.)

“The golf course was a par 35 regulation course open to the public. The club house expanded and it was a popular spot, offering a full dinner menu and often live entertainment. Minnie Olson, who with her husband Gil had formerly owned the Doodlebug Café in Cambridge, was one of the cooks at the club. Her pickled beef, served as an hors d’oeuvre, became widely known to buy it by the jarful to take home.”

Details about the golf course are hard to come by — at least they were for me. “It wasn’t a very elaborate course — kind of an executive course,” said Richard Guetschoff of North Branch, who estimated he played Bar L a dozen times. “Kind of a family-type course.”

“Short, smaller course,” agreed Ivan Peterson of Malmo, Minn., former son-in-law of Ray Larowe. Peterson said Larowe had never designed a golf course before starting Bar L.

Larowe’s background was in road and dirt construction, said his daughter, Avis Peterson of Mesa, Ariz. “He could look at a piece of ground and visualize what he could do with it,” Avis Peterson said.

By all indications, Larowe excavated earth and created a pond out of low-lying ground south of the clubhouse-supper club. The pond likely added aesthetic value to the property, though it doesn’t appear to have been in play for golfers. (This was a feature of import, as well, to waterslide fans — and yes, I promise I will get to that.)

The supper club component of Bar L was a popular place in the late 1950s and 1960s. Many patrons were employees at the Nike Missile Base in nearby Stanford Township, established in 1960 as a means to defend the Twin Cities during the Cold War years.

“There was a house and barn and horses and horseback riding and barn dances” at Bar L, Avis Peterson recalled.

Peterson helped with cooking and cleaning. She helped explain both the “ranch” and “bar” components of the place.

“The original chairs in the clubhouse had cowhide on the upholstery. It was Western-themed inside,” she said. “It was a dry county, so you couldn’t sell liquor. People had locker stalls with liquor in them, and they could buy setups (from Bar L). The Hawaiians was the band that played there every Saturday night for a long time.”

Eventually, a sister establishment named ~~Augie’s~~ Auggies Hayloft opened a couple of hundred yards east of the Bar L clubhouse. “It was a converted barn and offered refreshments and short orders when the main house wasn’t open,” the Isanti County Traveler story read. “There were also horses for trail riding for a time. Later, snowmobile races were held on winter Sundays.”

The golf course, the Traveler reported, never was particularly successful. The Traveler reported that high water in springtime flooded portions of the golf course and the River Ridge development, though one golfer told me the course didn’t have severe flooding issues.

“The final blow to the Bar-L came on February 20, 1970, with a disastrous fire,” the Traveler reported. “Losses were estimated at between $400,000 and $500,00. While there was talk of rebuilding, that never came to pass. Auggies Hayloft remained open until it too burned a year later.”

On the former Bar L golf course grounds. The bulk of the golf grounds is now grown over with trees and brush, though it's fairly easy to conceive where the holes might have been routed. The smokestack to the right and in the background (click on the photo for a larger view) is all that remains of Augie's Hayloft. — On the former Bar L golf course grounds. The bulk of the golf grounds is now grown over with trees and brush, though it’s fairly easy to conceive where the holes might have been routed. The smokestack to the right and in the background (click on the photo for a larger view) is all that remains of Auggies Hayloft.

Larowe had in the meantime become the founder of another golf course — Golden Tee Country Club, a nine-holer in Ham Lake that was incorporated in 1964. Larowe again conceived of something greater than a golf course — homes, townhomes, tennis courts and a tournament-quality golf course, according to a 2012 letter sent by Avis Peterson to Linda Coffin, who wrote a history of what started as Golden Tee and, after Larowe’s exit as owner, became Majestic Oaks Golf Club in 1971. Larowe’s vision essentially was realized, as Majestic Oaks currently features 45 holes of golf plus an events center and dinner theater.

Back to the Bar L site …

Larowe’s old property — the interior of the semi-circular area created by 297th and 293rd avenues and River Ridge Road — is now occupied primarily by the pond, wetlands and about 20 homesites. The Traveler reported that one home lies on what used to be the old third green at Bar L.

There are a few other odd details and rumors about Bar L that I researched but never could confirm or explain:

— Though Bar L has been closed for 45 years, it still is listed as an operating golf course on at least one Internet site, one that lists “youth golf” venues. Parents, don’t go dropping your kids off in Bradford Township for any daylong instructional golf clinics. You’ll be disappointed.

— A trail bisects the Bar L property and runs north-and-south behind what is now the yard of a homeowner who referred to it as “The Oxen Trail” and suggested it predates the golf course by many years. The trail is clearly visible in a 1938 aerial photo of the area and runs for at least two miles north and south of the golf course site.

— One of the River Ridge residents passed along two tidbits. First, he said he heard that former Minnesota Twins star Harmon Killebrew once was interested in buying Bar L. I made an inquiry with the Killebrew family that was not met with a response. Then I noticed in an old plat map that property just west of Bar L once was owned by an entity called Wheelock Enterprises — and Wheelock Whitney and family were prime figures in the early years of the Minnesota Twins. There is a Wheelock Enterprises based in Stillwater, but again, I was unable to connect with that business, so I have to reach the conclusion that all of this is just odd, random coincidence.

— Second, the River Ridge resident said that a creek that runs through the southern part of the site — he called it Lost Creek — was considered a dividing line between the Lakota/Dakota Sioux and Ojibwe tribes of North America. I couldn’t find any verification of that, or for that manner any refutal, and there is at least a grain of credibility to the claim. Lake Mille Lacs, 45 miles to the north, is considered a sacred body of water by the Dakota Sioux, and the Rum River, which emanates from Lake Mille Lacs, is known as “Spirit River” in the Dakota culture.

Lost Creek, incidentally, likely was the primary source of flooding on the Bar L grounds and was the stream that Larowe tapped into to build his pond next to the clubhouse.

Which brings us, finally and not coincidentally, to the waterslide.

“Behind the clubhouse,” Avis Peterson said, “he (Ray Larowe) built a sauna, and then he built a slide to go behind the sauna and into the pond. You’d go down the hill and into the cold water.”

There are crumbling, concrete remains of the sauna near the house that is on the site that was the Bar L clubhouse. The old sauna is on a hillside, and the current resident uses the bank as a sliding hill in the wintertime, leading down to the pond.

The gentleman who owns the home had no clue that Ray Larowe’s Bar L revelers once slip-slided their way into Ray’s pond.

Don’t believe the waterslide story? Check out the photos below.

Bar L Ranch Club site, 1953 aerial photo. The bright, white area near the upper-left corner of the photo is the site of the former Johnson Sisters Rest Home. There is no golf course at this point. The Rum River runs along the right side of the photo. Courtesy John Borchert Library, University of Minnesota. — Bar L Ranch Club site, 1953 aerial photo — before the golf course and supper club existed. The bright, white area near the upper-left corner of the photo is the site of the former Johnson Sisters Rest Home. The Rum River is along the right side of the photo. Aerial photos courtesy of John Borchert Map Library, University of Minnesota.

1965 photo of the same site, with the Bar L Ranch Club having been established and the golf course in the upper-right quadrant of the photo. Ray Larowe's pond below the clubhouse, and the channel he presumably dug to feed the pond, is clearly visible. — 1965 photo of the same site, with the Bar L Ranch Club having been established and the golf course along the right side of the photo, near the river. Below the clubhouse lies Ray Larowe’s pond, and the channel he presumably dug to feed the pond.

In case you're skeptical about the existence of the waterslide that led from the Bar L sauna to the pond, perhaps this will convince you. Check out the thin white line below the clubhouse and leading into the pond. It's the waterslide, and the white rectangle at the top of the thin white line is the sauna. — In case you’re skeptical about the existence of the waterslide that led from the Bar L sauna to the pond, perhaps this will convince you. Check out the thin white line below the clubhouse and leading into the pond. It’s the waterslide, and the white rectangle at the top of the thin white line is the sauna.

Thanks to the Isanti County Historical Society for considerable information on Bar L Ranch Club and its Isanti County lost-course predecessor, Shady Oaks (see previous post).

January 2020 footnote: I found a Minneapolis Tribune ad from Oct. 17, 1968, advertising Auggies Hayloft (it appears I had the spelling wrong in the original post). Here it is:

Golf up Minnesota 65, Part 1

October 24, 2015Just plain old golfColumbia, Hidden Haven, Majestic Oaks, Minnesota golfJoe Bissen

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

TPC of the Twin Cities, Blaine

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

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

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.

Calling Clearwater Country Club. Hello? Hello???

August 12, 2015Lost golf coursesAnnandale, Minnesota golf, Wright CountyJoe Bissen

(Note: Since this original post was filed, a couple of updates have presented themselves. Read this post first, then see the updates here🙂

—————-

Think of everything Minnesota golf course owners have had to put up with through the years.

Tractor broke down. Hired help quit. Bear pooped on the fifth green. Cart path washed out. Well ran dry. Tree fell on the 12th fairway. Poa annua everywhere. Toilets overflowed. *%#^@ cutworms.

Flora’s on the party line again.

Yeah, that last one probably wasn’t so common — except at Clearwater Country Club, a modest little nine-holer that once occupied a spit of land off the south shore of Clearwater Lake, a mile and a half north of the central Minnesota city of Annandale.

Owen Prevost was the last owner of Clearwater Country Club, having acquired the place in the early 1960s. In addition to working a full-time job at Univac in Minneapolis while
double-bunking his six kids above the pro shop, Prevost had to put up with the
interruption of potential commerce whenever Annandale’s telephone service was at its
insufferable worst.

Prevost’s daughter, Sharon Judge, picks up the story from here.

“Back then (1963-1964), the pro shop business telephone was part of a ‘party line’ shared by four or five other houses on the road, including Flora and Lyman Ransom on their farm,” Judge recently related in an email. “Clearwater Country Club’s number was 7799, and calls were placed by actual operators.

“The party line posed a significant problem for our business, because anyone wanting to make a tee time, or sign up for men’s day, or women’s day, or wanting to make a delivery, etc., had to compete with Flora Ransom, the farmer’s wife, who spent all of her time using and gossiping by phone. Flora was a very kind, but winded, person.”

Clearwater Country Club had a nice run of at least 2 1/2 decades, telephonic interlopers notwithstanding. The beginning and concluding details of the course’s history are
unfortunately missing here, as none of the dozen or so people I contacted or tried
to contact either knew or offered precise starting and ending dates. Judge, in her
otherwise wonderfully detailed email, filled in many blanks in the middle. Here is a partial reconstruction:

Clearwater CC opened before 1942, most likely. A postcard dated June 22, 1942, and sent from Minneapolis to Rockford, Ill., confirms that notion. The postcard, pictured below and bought by yours truly off eBay, is captioned “Boat Landing at Golf Course, Clearwater Lake, Annandale, Minn.” The golf course is not clearly visible in the postcard (nor is Flora Ransom), but it seems likely the postcard showed part of its former grounds. (I never was told by anyone that there might have been another golf course on Clearwater Lake at any time).

clearwater2

clearwater1 An early owner of Clearwater CC might have been the Swyter family, though admittedly that is purely speculative on my part. A March 2015 obituary for Berniece Swyter of Paynesville, Minn., published in the St. Cloud Times, includes the sentence “Berniece and George (Swyter) operated a golf course and campground on Clearwater Lake in
Annandale, MN.” I made inquiries with the Swyter family but was unable to confirm that the golf course mentioned in the obituary was Clearwater CC.

In 1950 or thereabouts, Hal Carnes bought the golf course, according to an entry on a blog produced by an Ovaska family of Los Alamos, N.M. The blog’s author posted a photo of Hal Carnes and wrote that “Grandpa Hal was an excellent golfer and they (Hal and his wife,
Janet) bought the Clearwater Country Club in 1950(?) and my mom used to drive the golf cart and sell drinks.” Hal Carnes, the blog post says, had previously lived in St. Paul and
Baudette.

My attempts to contact members of the Ovaska family were unsuccessful.

Clearwater Country Club was noted, for better or worse, for its sand greens, a feature not uncommon in Minnesota the 1920s through 1940s. However, while most of Minnesota’s sand-green courses either shut down by the 1940s or converted to grass greens,
Clearwater remained sand-bound until its demise in the 1960s.

The Ovaska blog and Sharon Judge’s email both suggested Clearwater Country Club was the last wholly sand-greens course in Minnesota. It likely was one of the last, but I’m
almost certain it was not the last. To my knowledge, that distinction belongs to
Whitewater Valley Golf Course in Whitewater State Park near St. Charles, which shut down in 1975. (The Whitewater course is featured in “Fore! Gone.” and pictured on the book’s cover.)

A few Annandale-area residents remember playing Clearwater Country Club. Ed Kaz, a
former Annandale hardware store owner, recalled that the sand greens were difficult to negotiate. Retired schoolteacher Dave Greve said much the same and noted that the course was relatively short, likely not a par 36. Jim Gustason, a Minneapolis native who now lives in Rogers and maintains a home on the north shore of Clearwater Lake that his parents once owned, remembered playing Clearwater CC as early as 1950. He and a friend would troll from one side of the lake to the other, play the golf course, then scoop
wayward golf balls out of the lake.

Bruce Prevost, son of former course owner Owen Prevost and brother of Sharon Judge,
recalled that the Prevosts operated a candy store and rented boats on the premises.
And, he said, “My mom was known for her snapping-turtle soup on men’s night.” Bruce Prevost speculated that Clearwater CC shut down in 1966 or 1967.

But it was Judge, who in an odd coincidence now lives in Annandale, Va., who offered the most vivid memories of Clearwater Country Club. “I have fond memories of that place in a John Irving ‘Hotel New Hampshire’ kind of way,” she wrote in her email.

The memories are little short of priceless.

“My dad … sold the course because he didn’t have the money, or the desire to go into debt by replacing the sand with grass greens (estimated at that time to cost around $3,000 per green to convert),” Judge wrote. “The clubhouse faced Highway 24 just before the road curves to go toward Pleasant Lake. It was bought by Ron Freeman. There was a circular driveway and parking area for golfers.

“While my father worked at Univac in Minneapolis during the week, our mom and my sister Gail and I ran the pro shop. (She was in eighth and ninth grade, while I was in fourth and fifth grade.) My mom, Myra Prevost, cooked the dinners for Thursday men’s league, while Dad, Owen, the pro, hosted and played. Thursday night men’s league always ended with a few guys smoking cigars and playing poker in the pro shop late at night.

“My job as a kid was sometimes manning the pro shop, loading soda pop in the cooler, and as I got older, I was able to help oil the sand greens and moved the sweepers around them (carpet squares on rope pulls), and mow fairways, until I got the tractor and the mowers behind it stuck in the water hazard and partially tore up the seventh fairway. My dad realized I wasn’t quite old enough to have the skill set yet for that job!

“… The pro shop had an L-shaped countertop and display cases for balls and tees for sale, and we sold soda and chuckwagons and other sandwiches you could heat in the first
microwave oven.

“… The club’s first fairway was parallel to Highway 24. The first tee box was to the right of the house (with the road to the back).

“… My sister Donna worked at the course summers while she was in college. … She lived in the second little pro shop, which was a cabin down by Clearwater Lake. Golfers could stop halfway round the course, drink a pop or eat a sandwich, or buy cigarettes. … This
little pro shop also served as the place that managed the resort my parents also ran,
Clearwater Resort, which had campsites, two or three cabins for rent, trailer sites, and
picnic areas, as well as boat and pontoon rentals, and a beach/swimming area.

“The golf course also had a driving range, left of the creek and trees that ran along side the pro shop residence. It was a big, open field that ran from the Highway 24 down to
Clearwater Lake. My sister Gail and I retrieved the golf balls by walking around with Brown’s Ice Cream gallon buckets and tin cans attached to old club shafts to scoop up balls (while trying to lookout for garter snakes and field mice) — my least favorite job. But we got paid for it. The golf course and the resort was a family affair.

“Dad’s dream was to open another golf course (on Cedar Lake). He never got the approval from the county he needed. So to feed his interest in course design, he helped Elmer (Schmidt) design his course, Whispering Pines (just southeast of downtown Annandale).

“Dad, Owen Prevost, loved the game of golf. We know he’s up in heaven still playing!”

Clearwater Country Club, 1963 aerial photo. Clearwater Lake is at the top of the photo; Wright County Highway 24 is the straight-line road near the bottom. The Clearwater CC clubhouse and its circular driveway can be seen near the bottom-left corner. Photo courtesy of Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

Clearwater Country Club, 1963 aerial photo. The south shore of Clearwater Lake is at the top of the photo; Wright County Highway 24 is the straight-line road near the bottom; it curves
toward Annandale at the bottom-left corner. The Clearwater CC clubhouse and its circular driveway can be seen near the bottom-left corner. Photo courtesy of Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

Author’s note: What was I thinking? 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 the second entry in a series of posts that catch up with lost golf courses I missed in “Fore! Gone.” Next up (probably): Valley View, Hastings.

Thanks for reading.

One I missed: Rush City Country Club

August 6, 2015Lost golf coursesChisago County, Minnesota golfJoe Bissen

July 27, 2015

“Well, should we take a look?”

Don Johnson had popped the question.

Johnson and I were spending a late afternoon exploring. We had driven into northern Chisago County and pulled off the road. We were starting at an open field when he up and said the six magic words:

“Well, should we take a look?”

Um, yeah, Don. We should take a look. I mean, after all, it’s a lost golf course. Why
wouldn’t we take a look? Why wouldn’t anyone?

Fine, so traipsing through long-empty fields with rarely much to really see isn’t everyone’s cup o’ frappucino. Nevertheless, I had wanted to check out the place, and I had wanted Johnson to check it out with me, never mind the handful of mitigating circumstances.

Such as:

Bumps and brambles. This was rolling turf, overgrown with grass, weeds and thistles,
shin-high to knee-high. No, this wouldn’t exactly be an expedition up the sheer face of
El Capitan, but it wouldn’t be a walk in the park, either. Tumble-and-fall potential: maybe 10 percent.

Also: The temperature was 90. Humidity was up there, too.

And: Johnson was 87. As in years of age.

“Eighty-seven and a half,” he had gently corrected me a bit earlier.

Not to mention: Carl Heinrich’s advice.

OK, I just mentioned it.

A month earlier, Heinrich, who owns property just east of where Johnson and I were standing, had suggested in a phone conversation that exploring the premises, especially the wooded area surrounding nearby Rush Creek, might not be prudent. Something
concerning large mammals with sharp incisors and powerful paws.

Not that I cared. Not that decency prevailed, either, prompting me to suggest, say, this
rejoinder to Johnson:

“Sure, Don, let’s go look around, but just FYI, I’ve been told there might be bears close by, perhaps eager to consume our major organs and leave our rotting entrails over by the
second green.”

No, I shut up. I wanted to explore the 60-year-old resting place of Rush City Country Club as much as Johnson did.

We forged ahead.

——————

“The Rush City Golf Course was
developed in 1932-33 by Arthur ‘Art’ and William ‘Bill’ Johnson on the J.P. Johnson farm east of Rush City,” reads the first sentence in “Rush City Golf Course,” a
detailed, illustrated booklet
written by Art Johnson’s son Don — the same Don Johnson who was exploring the abandoned course with me.

“The design and construction of the golf course,” the booklet
continues, “was assisted by Pete Carlson, who developed and
operated the golf course on Sand Lake near Moose Lake MN. The (Rush City) course was first opened for play in 1934.”

To be more specific, Rush City Country Club (or Golf Course, or Golf Club; it was referred to all three ways) was situated one mile east-northeast of
downtown Rush City, off Chisago County Highway 55. Across the road to the north in
modern times lies a soybean field and then the southern edge of the landing strip for Rush City Regional Airport. The golf course lay just south of the highway. Bisecting it during its playing days was Rush Creek, a serpentine stream that flows out of Rush Lake, west of Rush City and Interstate 35, and ultimately empties into the St. Croix River.

If anyone knows the lay of the land, Johnson does. He grew up on the property, slept and ate and studied in the abode that also served as the golf clubhouse. He played Rush City CC as a youth and helped the family manage the farm and golf course before graduating from Rush City High as the class salutatorian in 1945. He attended the University of
Minnesota and went on to work in the Twin Cities as a mechanical engineer for Honeywell.

Johnson, who is retired and now lives in Lindstrom, later developed an interest in his Chisago County and western Wisconsin roots, became a genealogy expert and history buff, and wrote the Rush City Golf Course booklet a decade ago. It is the definitive history of the lost course.

A few more passages:

“The golf course was first developed by tiling and draining land along Rush Creek, which was already beginning to dry up in the early 1930s. The course of Rush Creek was altered to fill and straighten one of the horseshoe bends. Three holes followed the course of the creek. As originally designed and built, the golf course was a par 36. The greens were oiled sand, as were most of the country courses at that time.

“Frequent stories in the Rush City Post tell of various golf tournaments being held, pitting the locals against teams from Braham, Cambridge and North Branch starting in 1934.”
(A round of 40, recorded by Huck Merriott in 1934, is the lowest score mentioned in the
handful of newspaper clippings and ads offered by Johnson.)

“… As the ground along Rush Creek became wetter near the end of the 1930s, the golf course had to be altered and shortened two different times until it became only a par 29. Thereafter, only two holes, #1 and #7, crossed the creek, and none played along Rush Creek.” (A scorecard from the redesigned and shorter version of the course lists only two holes longer than 300 yards.)

This image, scanned from Don Johnson’s “Rush City Golf Course” booklet, shows the first hole at Rush City Country Club, circa 1940. The hole was a 135-yard par 3, crossing Rush Creek. The sand green is visible to the left of two smaller trees toward the top-left of the photo. Johnson took the photo after climbing the windmill on the family farm.

” … During the winter of 1934-35 the clubhouse was remodeled and in the spring of 1935 was opened for dances several nights a week in addition to golf. … From 1935 until about 1943 Saturday night dances were held at the club house with beer, set-ups and
hamburgers being sold. A 5¢ slot machine was also operated in the club house but was
always moved out of sight into the ladies rest room when notification was received that the sheriff was coming for a visit.

” … The golf course continued to operate until about 1954, although never regaining the popularity and tournaments of the 1930s and early 1940s after the end of WWII.”

Johnson’s newspaper clippings featured ads: “Herman Sandquist and his orchestra will play at the club” … “Hamm’s and Glueck’s Beer on draught” … “Shot-gun Turkey Shoot … Use your own gun and ammunition.”

————

Johnson and I tromped into the field. We approached the only standing building in sight — although “standing” hardly seems the operative word. An old granary, tilted so badly you’d swear you could knock it over with a properly placed whisper, leaned out toward the golf grounds, standing sentry, as it did 75 years earlier, near the corner of what was a dogleg on the first hole of the course’s original design.

That opening hole would be replaced in Rush City CC’s later, wetter years by a par 3 of 135 yards that crossed Rush Creek. The hole today would be considered the antithesis of a proper golf hole — instead of a grass green with a sand bunker beyond, it had a sand green with a grass bunker beyond. (In the photo above, the former green site is visible at the clearing near the horizon.)

Old No. 1 was memorable for Johnson. “There was a kid, I was in first grade and he was in second grade,” Johnson told me a couple of weeks earlier in a phone conversation. “We played the first hole, and he beat me. He got the first hole in 12 shots, and I did it in 13.

“The thing is, we went on and went to school together and played sports together, and I never could beat him at anything.”

You could blame the equipment, Don, and no one would think the worse of you.

“I learned to play golf using the backside of my dad’s left-handed putter,” Johnson said.

Moving on, we came upon old concrete blocks 60 yards south of the granary. They were part of the foundation of Johnson’s childhood home — in other words, the old Rush City CC
clubhouse. Nothing remains of the building except the
foundation and part of an exit on the building’s west side. A patch of day lilies planted by two of Johnson’s aunts in the mid-1930s still blooms alongside the foundation. The two-story house was burned down in about 1990, Johnson said, in
order to ensure a clear path for craft flying in and out of the
nearby airport.

Johnson explained that the bulk of the golf course once lay mostly to the east and south of this spot, part of it on low ground near the creek and more of it on higher ground across the creek.

Though Johnson is the pre-eminent authority on Rush City Country Club, then and now, Heinrich offered a couple of recollections as well.

“When I bought that land,” Heinrich said, “I found so many golf balls. I gave a 10-pound sack of them to some kid as payment for working for me.”

Also, he recalled, “I had this hired hand; he’d see golfers go out and chop at the grass. If we had boiled eggs for breakfast, he’d put them out there, and the golfers, they’d go out swinging away and looking for the balls — and they’d be eggshells.”

From a slight rise near the former first tee of Rush City CC, Rush Creek is visible below,
winding eastward. (No bears in sight.)

This is the first in a series of posts that catch up with lost golf courses I missed in “Fore! Gone.” Next up: Clearwater Country Club, Annandale.

Thanks for reading.

Author’s note II: The old Rush City Country Club token pictured at the top of this post was generously given to me by Don Johnson. Much appreciated, sir.