Minnesota Golfer - Directory 2012 - 48

(punch shots
)
MGANews
InsidetheMGA
The history of Minnesota's golf courses
includes stories at every club
By Tom Ryan
N
o one really knows when the fi rst
golf shot was played in the United
States, but we do know that the fi rst golf
course was built in 1884 in White Sulpher
Springs, W.Va. The Oakhurst Links course
lay dormant for decades until 1994, when
it was restored to basically its original layout,
and is now played by golf enthusiasts
strictly with hickory shafted clubs and
gutta-percha balls, just as it was more than
125 years ago.
We also know that golf found its way to
Minnesota less than 10 years later, when
Town & Country Club in St. Paul opened
for play in 1893. Bryn Mahr Golf
Club was opened fi ve years later,
and The Minikahda Club the
year after that. While Bryn Mahr
only lasted a few years before being
plowed under to make way
for residential development, T&C
and Minikahda remain on their
The Minikahda Club to the Ryder Cup
that will be held at Hazeltine in 2016. In
between, we have hosted every USGA
championship and team events as well as
fi ve PGA Championships.
The fi rst golf courses were all private,
founded by business and community leaders
enamored by this new game. Courses
sprung up seemingly overnight as the
game became exponentially more popular
and memberships mushroomed. The
building of public courses soon followed,
with Glenwood (now Theodore Wirth)
in Minneapolis built in 1919 and Phalen
in St. Paul in 1924 being the fi rst
courses opened strictly for public
play in the metro area. Golf
took Minnesota by storm, with
110 courses built across the
state by 1930.
The annual Directory ediEvery
course has a story. It's one of the
wonderful things about this great game.
Every course has a reason for being built.
original sites and can rightly be called the
birthplaces of golf in Minnesota.
A new book is hitting the book stores
in March that recounts the birth of golf
in Minnesota (see story, p. 26) and examines
the very origins of the game through
the history of many of our wonderful golf
courses. Notable architects such as Donald
Ross, A.W. Tillinghast, Seth Raynor and
Robert Trent Jones all had their hand in
designing some of our classic courses here
in Minnesota.
The quality of our golf courses is refl
ected in the number of national championships
and important team events held
in the state, from the 1916 U.S. Open at
46
MINNESOTAGOLFER Directory 2012
tion of Minnesota Golfer lists
the essential information
for every
MGA member club.
What it doesn't list,
however,
is each
club's history. Every
course has a story.
It's one of the wonderful things about this
great game. Every course has a reason
for being built, and each course
has multiple stories surrounding its
players and the great rounds played
there.
We can't experience playing baseball
at Target Field, football at the Metrodome
or hockey at the Exel Center, but we
can walk the fairways and experience the
same game as competitors in our storied
golf championships did.
We're close to opening another fi ne
season of golf. I hope you have a great
year. Have fun and enjoy the view. See
you on the course.
www.mngolf.org
Updates on people, places
and events from the MGA
and its Allied Associations
New MGA Mobile App
for Golfers on the Go
A free mobile app is now available to
all MGA members through the Android
and Apple App stores. The app
allows golfers to search a golf course,
post a score, check their scoring history,
look up USGA Handicap Indexes
and follow the latest news from
mngolf.org via a scrolling ticker.
For MGA tournament players, Senior
Tour and Members' Day participants,
the new app allows quick and
convenient event entry, pairings and
schedules.
Download the free app at the
Android Market or Apple App Store;
search for " GHIN Mobile App. "
http://www.mngolf.org http://www.mngolf.org
Minnesota Golfer - Directory 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Minnesota Golfer - Directory 2012
