Tag Archives: St. Louis Park

Westwood Hills: Time travel, with photos

June 8, 2021Lost golf coursesMinnesota golf, St. Louis Park, Westwood HillsJoe Bissen

Westwood Hills graces us again.

Westwood Hills Golf Course, near the northwest corner of St. Louis Park, had a run of nearly 30 years as one of Minnesota’s best (that’s subjective, but I’m going with it) and most popular (also subjective, also going with it) public golf courses. Its rolling, wooded and, OK, sometimes-spongy former grounds now are occupied principally by a nature center, a schoolyard and many homes and streets.

Many years ago, however, hundreds of west-metro public golfers called Westwood Hills home. As did the McNulty family.

James A. McNulty founded Westwood Hills in 1929, hiring prominent golf architect and professional Tom Vardon to design the course. McNulty named it after a neighborhood in western Los Angeles and established it as an immediate neighbor of Minneapolis Golf Club, which lay just to the south and west. McNulty and family members owned and/or operated Westwood Hills Golf Course for three decades, and some even took up residence in the neighborhood.

Jim McNulty, great-grandson of the golf course founder, grew up on Westwood Hills Curve and in the early 2010s e-mailed me a small trove of photos of Westwood Hills Golf Course. A handful spruced up the pages of my first golf book, Fore! Gone. Minnesota’s Lost Golf Courses, 1897-1999 (it’s a great Father’s Day gift idea, and should you have an inclination to buy it, please buy directly from Amazon rather than a third-party seller). The more I found out about Westwood Hills — visited by the likes of Patty Berg, Joe Louis, Les Bolstad and thousands more — the more smitten I became. It remains my favorite Minnesota lost golf course among the 228 I have identified.

Last month, my e-mail inbox was graced again by a message from Jim McNulty. He forwarded a dozen “new” old photos of Westwood Hills. He has graciously allowed me to share them, so here we go.

I am interspersing the photos with passages about Westwood Hills from Minneapolis newspapers. The sum total is not intended to be a definitive club history, but there are some interesting nuggets.

The photos do not correspond with the text entries or the dates on them. I believe most are from the 1950s.

To Jim McNulty, continued thanks.

The Westwood Hills clubhouse sat on high ground near the corner of what is now Westwood Hills Drive and W. 18th Street. Jim McNulty said the views were impressive, and the subsequent photos will show the vistas and the golf course’s rolling terrain.

1929

Minneapolis Star, June 28: “The Westwood Hills Country club will be opened tomorrow afternoon with Ray and Ronnie Espinosa playing Frank Smeed, course manager, and Ernest Penfold of the Minneapolis Golf club. The exhibition will start at 2 p.m. The course will be open for play after the match.”

Star advertisement, July 12:

PLAY GOLF at Westwood Hills

18-hole championship course

Natural hazards and terrain admirably suited to sporty golf. Creeping bent grass greens. A nine-hole pitch shot course for practicing approaching and putting. Free driving range.

15 minutes from Loop

How to get there — First turn to left after passing U.S. Fox Farm on Superior Boulevard. Two and one-half miles west on Cedar Lake Road.

For Reservations – Call Orchard 9080

1930

Minneapolis Tribune, May 7: “Par on the Westwood Hills fee golf course has been increased from 71 to 72, following enlargement and improvement of the links. … Hole No. 13 now has a water hazard. Hole No. 14 has been lengthened from 420 yards to 575, and is now a par five instead of par four.”

1934

Star, April 13: “Next Sunday will be a gala day at Westwood Hills golf club when the next nine holes, completing a 27-hole layout, will be inaugurated and Lester Bolstad will make his formal debut as a professional. … Westwood Hills is the only course in this section that has 27 holes in its layout.”

Tribune, April 29: The Tribune’s Chandler Forman detailed the new nine holes, which were mixed with some old ones. Thirteen new holes were created, six of them on the old second nine. “The course is laid out over many acres of beautiful and rolling terrain,” Forman wrote.

Highlights:

“No. 20, 355-yard par 4 – This was constructed from the old thirteenth, and beautified by filling the lake in front of the tee with water. One of the strongest holes on the course, with a high hill to carry, as well as the water hazard.”

“No. 22, 540-yard par 5 — A double dogleg and the feature hole of the course. Very narrow tree-lined fairway. White birches, pines, oak and huge elms.”

“No. 24, 380-yard par 4 — An ideal type of hole, tough for a low handicap player and fairly simple for the dub. A good golfer can take a chance and cut over trees at elbow, while the dub has an easy route around.”

Star, Sept. 13: “Les Bolstad, club professional, established a new course record on the first and third nines of the 27-hole layout at Westwood Hills Golf club Tuesday, putting together a 33 and a 34 for for a 67 to be four under par figures. He was playing with Bob Meyers of Interlachen.”

1939

Tribune, May 6: “Patty Berg, Minneapolis’ little uncanny wizard of the fairways, hung up another women’s golf record Friday when she toured Westwood Hills in 73 strokes, only one over men’s par. Patty moved over from Interlachen with her father, H.L. Berg, Lee Lockwood and Marsh Nelson, to practice at Westwood for her exhibition golf week match there next Tuesday with Gunnard Johnson, Bea Barrett and Bill Kaiser of Louisville.

“(Berg) finished with a sensational four on the long par five eighteenth, which would be par six for women as it’s nearly 550 yards in length. The women’s national champion laid an iron shot three feet from the cup for an easy four.”

Berg termed Westwood Hills “really remarkably good for a public course.”

Star-Journal, Aug. 13: The newspaper reported that total yardage on the 27 holes was 9,405, and that 100 men were members. “The women’s group, organized in 1936 with 20 members, now limits its membership to 65 and has a constant waiting list.

“Lester Bolstad, then pro at the club, helped the women organize. He and Gunner (sic; it was Gunnard) Johnson, the present pro, have developed both this group and the Ladies’ Tuesday Evening Group …”

In this photo, the Minneapolis skyline can be seen on the horizon.

1943

Tribune, June 1: “Over 450 golfers played Westwood Hills Monday as Russ Welch, Len Peterson and Charles Vrooman won 36-hole Memorial Day medal play prizes.”

Morning Tribune, May 1: A small ad served this notice: “In respectful memory of John C. McNulty, Westwood Hills Golf Course will not be open today.”

John and James McNulty were in the grain business and co-owners of Westwood Hills GC. James, listed at this time as “still owner” of WH by the Star, died in March 1945 in Glendale, Calif.

1946

A March 3 Tribune story noted that “three residential additions are being platted, one taking nine holes from Westwood Hills golf course for 150 lots, the homes to be sold in the $12,000 to $15,000 class.”

By 1946, the course was advertised as 18 holes, but an October 1947 Star story noted that construction had started with an intent “to open three nines next spring.”

1947

Star, March 22: ” ‘Please,’ moaned Pat Johnson, ‘tell ’em to stop ringing my phone.’

“Manager of the Westwood Hills golf course, Johnson has been swamped with telephone calls since The Star reported Thursday that Westwood might become a private club this summer.

“Every golfer in town wants to join, apparently.

“But Johnson said today that no decision will be made on whether the club will be public, private or semi-private until the matter of an estate is settled. … Westwood might remain a public course anyway, because the club did well financially a year ago, and R.J. McGuire, present owner, contemplates no change.”

On June 20, 1947, McGuire took out a classified ad advertising his stone rambler. “Sacrifice for quick sale,” the ad read in part.

I confess I hadn’t heard of McGuire before this, but I believe Robert McNulty and John McNulty became Westwood Hills’ owners shortly after this ad appeared.

1949

Star, April 8: “Westwood Hills golf course was open today … on 12 holes of its 18 holes.”

The note was intended simply to say early-season conditions kept the course from being fully open, but it serves notice that WH was an 18-holer by then.

1950

Star, July 11: “John McNulty probably doesn’t know it, but he’s growing lettuce on his Westwood Hills golf course. Owner McNulty just opened three new holes on the first nine. But these fairways were used as farmland during the war, and despite the reconditioning job, an occasional lettuce leaf peeks up through the sod.”

Stories have been told about golfers getting lost while playing at Westwood Hills and straying onto the adjacent, private grounds of Minneapolis Golf Club. And vice versa. On Aug. 23, 1950, the Morning Tribune, in coverage of the U.S. Amateur being played at MGC, wrote: “Two women golfers apparently got lost as they were playing Westwood Hills, which adjoins Minneapolis Golf club. Carrying their golf bags, they wandered up to the 10th green. But they must have decided they didn’t care to play before a huge gallery, because they turned and went back to Westwood.”

1953

Tribune, July 26: “Ole Williamson set a new course record Saturday at Westwood Hills golf course.

“Williamson scored a 66 on rounds of 32-34, a new standard for the layout since it was changed a few years ago.”

On July 12, a Tribune story on Bolstad, the former pro at Westwood Hills and now a legendary figure in Minnesota golf, led with a recollection from Herman Berg Sr., father of future LPGA legend Patty Berg, taking his young daughter to Westwood Hills to work on her short game and practice out of sand. “She already had a swing,” Bolstad said.

1954

A Star story in April suggested co-owner John McNulty (with brother Bob) would be listening more seriously to offers to purchase the course, citing the tax burden. The course consisted of 18 holes, and a 16-tee lighted driving range was being built.

Westwood Hills’ practice green was distinctive. Situated just to the east of the clubhouse, it was surrounded by a hedge.

A 1937 aerial photo, taken from the University of Minnesota’s John Borchert Map Library, shows the hedged practice green as a lightly shaded rectangle near the bottom right corner, with the clubhouse alongside to the left (west). Holes on Westwood Hills fan out in different directions, notably to the west and slightly north, on what is now Westwood Hills Nature Center. Also visible are some greens on Minneapolis Golf Club, as well as the clubhouse, in the bottom-left corner of the photo.

1956

The Tribune noted in June that a new green fee schedule had been set: $1.60 for 18 holes weekday, $1.90 Saturday-Sunday.

1957

Westwood Hills and the city of St. Louis Park are in negotiations to sell all or part of the 27-hole course. Play continued through the season, with a plan to divide the land among a nine-hole municipal course, a park site and residential development.

1961

Tribune, June 2: “Westwood Hills golfers watched curiously while a band of ducks casually waddled across the fifth fairway.”

That is the last mention of Westwood Hills as an operating golf course that I know of. Sixty years later, at least one green site is still visible, hidden among trees and brush in the Westwood Hills Nature Center.

As the saying goes, Westwood Hills Golf Course had a good run.

Westwood Hills: A caddie’s memories

April 5, 2016Lost golf coursesSt. Louis ParkJoe Bissen

Westwood Hills Golf Course (photos courtesy Jim McNulty)

Why does every golf offseason in Minnesota seem longer than the previous one? I’m pretty sure that’s darn near chronologically impossible, but that’s how it has felt again in 2015-16. Anyway, while all of you wait to play the game again, and while I wait to track down another lost course or three, I thought I would share an email I received recently regarding caddying in the days of yore.

The message came from a fellow familiar with the lost Westwood Hills golf course in St. Louis Park. (The 27-hole course, adjacent to Minneapolis Golf Club, closed in the early 1960s, its land now occupied by housing, a schoolyard and a nature center.) I am not mentioning the fellow by name because he neither granted nor declined permission to use it. Regardless, I appreciate his passing it along.

The email, unedited:

“I started Caddying at Westwood in 1938 at the age of 11. I used to hitchhike to the course from North Mpls. The rates for caddies at that time was 75 cents for 18 holes and 45 cents for Nine. Two of my older brothers also caddied there. A caddy sandwich (mostly peanut butter on white bread) sold for 15 cents.

“After my first year in order to continue caddying, you had to by a medal pin with a number on it. The lower the number, the caddy had told how long he had been caddying.

“On nights before holidays a lot of the caddies would get there the night before so they could get two ‘loops’ in. There were certain code words we used for each other such as flytrap for a lousy caddy, Bagrat was another word and ball hock for caddies who would rather hunt for lost balls and then sell them to the players. I found out that you could make more money ball hocking. Balls like new could be sold for 50 cents. Po-do was one of the real cheap balls. Wilson, Spalding were the primo balls.

“Monday mornings caddies could play free. I bought a set of hooks fo 10 bucks. The only way I could break ninety was to cheat. It was a great way to make some money as my Dad had never known what allowance meant. I’m 89 now and living in Northern MN but gave up golfing years ago.”

Westwood Hills clubhouse (near what is now West 18th Street and Virginia Avenue South)

Westwood Hills was designed by Tom Vardon.

Westwood Hills, aerial view. Top of photo is east; left of photo is north. Large, open area on the left is now Westwood Lake, which was not a lake until the 1960s. The holes at the extreme right of the photo, with bunkers on them, I believe are part of Minneapolis Golf Club. — Westwood Hills, aerial view. Top of photo is east; left of photo is north. Large, open area on the left is now Westwood Lake, which was not a lake until the 1960s. The bunkered holes in the extreme bottom-right corner of the photo I believe are part of Minneapolis Golf Club.

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.