Brainerd Golf Trail, golf in Minnesota

[John_Conley]

A little background for those that don't know me.  I'm 37 and have been in Orlando for the last 13 years after spending 24 in Minneapolis.  About 15 years ago a course opened called The Pines at Grand View Lodge in the Brainerd Lakes area, a resorty/cabiny place roughly 2 1/2 hours N of the Twin Cities.  It was immediately considered "possibly the BEST course in the state" by knowledgeable, well-traveled golfers.

Things like this occur regularly in Minnesota, where locals have less respect than they should for their older, private clubs.

Woodhill - Ross
Minikahda - Watson/Ross
Interlachen - Watson/Ross
Minneapolis - Willie Park
Edina - Alex Findlay & others
North Oaks - Stanley Thompson
White Bear - Ross
Somerset - Raynor
White Bear - Tillinghast
Oak Ridge - William D. Clark (?who)
Hazeltine - RTJones
Golden Valley - Tillinghast

(I recently had a problem where I lost a too-long post, so I'll stop and restart.)

[John_Conley]

The Brainerd Area courses have started paying their advertising money into a pool and are promoting the area as a golf destination.  Like Destin, a decent number of very good courses opened in succession and now there are several worth seeing.

The "Trail" is as follows:

1. The Lakes at Ruttger's
2. Alec's Nine at Ruttger's
3. Cragun's Legacy, Bobby's 18
4. Cragun's Legacy, Dutch's 18
5. Legacy Reversable Par 3
6. The Classic at Madden's
7. The Social Nine at Madden's
8. Madden's Pine Beach East
9. Madden's Pine Beach West
10. The Pines at Grand View Lodge
11. The Garden Course at Grand View Lodge
12. The Preserve "at" Grand View Lodge
13. Whitebirch at Breezy Point Resort
14. Traditional Course at Breezy Point
15. Deacon's Lodge
16. Whitefish
17. Golden Eagle

Ruttger's, Madden's, Cragun's, Breezy Point, and Grand View Lodge are summer resorts that mainly cater to those looking to get out of the city - in most cases Minneapolis & St. Paul.  As you can see, most of the courses are affiliated with these resorts.

You would be most interested in the courses in Red.  Several of the "other" courses at each resort are more like Executive length.  Several have made the Golf Digest "Best in State".  (One of the courses at Cragun's is currently 19th or 20th alongside Golden Eagle, 6, 10, 12?, and 15 are either on the list now or have been in the past.)  For what it is worth, I've never agreed much with the position of the courses within Minnesota as invariably some modern okay course like Chaska or Bearpath invariably beats about a dozen old courses it shouldn't.

[John_Conley]

Some of these have an interesting storyline.  The owner of Madden's wanted a course where his resort guests could shoot a personal best.  The only thing anyone ever remembered about it was that it had a par 6.  Then the presence of The Pines (around 1990) opened everyone's eyes that "championship" golf could work amidst all the fishing and boating.  The newest course at Madden's is a real butt-kicker where - in the words of its owner - "everyone has a chance to play a tournament setup".

Cragun's is the only one to hire a "name" national architect and it is not highly regarded, despite the GD ranking.  It is hard to find anyone willing to go on record with their comments about these Robert Trent Jones, Jr. designs.  Word is that the site allowed for about 18, maybe 27, and they squeezed in 36.  It sits smack across the street from Madden's.

The Classic was built, CLUBHOUSE AND ALL, for $1.6 million.  Of course, they owned the land.  Still, this is an amazing testament to ingenuity, planning, and patience.  It was done almost entirely in-house with the maintenance crew for the existing Madden's courses.  Superintendant Scott Hoffman handled the routing and design duties.  Construction and grow-in took three years.  Most of the work was contracted locally.  They even handled their own irrigation.

[John_Conley]

My recent visit ignored The Pines, a course I had played three times more than a decade ago.  Despite the "buzz" around it in the early 90s, not many Minnesotans talk about the course any more.  They've added a 3rd nine, cleared out a lot of the underbrush, and introduced some condos since inception.  Still, anyone in the area for 4 or 5 days would be remiss if they didn't play at least one round there.

The Preserve at Grand View isn't at Grand View at all.  It is 8 miles N.  I didn't have time for it on this visit and am told it is very similar to Golden Eagle.  Both were designed by native North Dakotan and former PGA Tour pro Mike Morley.

So where did I play?

FRIDAY:  The Classic at Madden's.  

This is a wonderful way to spend a day.  Ranked #33 in the Golf Digest listing of the Top 100 Public courses, I think I find more Minnesotans that favor this to Deacon's Lodge than vice versa.  These people must be masochists!  Architect Scott Hoffmann joined me for lunch after the round and it was a real treat to hear about the project.  He has been the Supe at Madden's - considered to be pretty low-end stuff by serious golfers - for 25 years.  The owner wanted to have a top-tier course without spending a ton of money.  Various projects were considered before sticking to going it alone.  Tom Doak's name was even bandied about.  

John Harris (1993 US Am champ and Minnesota golf legend) and Geoff Cornish were brought in as "consultants" but time has lessened the attention their contributions have received.  Credit, rightfully, goes to Hoffmann for seeing the project through and his bosses for entrusting him with the responsibility.

Hoffmann's routing is tight with one exception, the trip from 3 green to 4 tee.  Many folks were walking the day we played, a rarity at upscale daily-fees these days.  The reason the walk is a bit of a trek is that the #3 green was sacred to Hoffmann as he had a suitable replica of Minnesota's most famous hole - the 16th at future Ryder Cup venue Hazeltine - just waiting to be created with a peninsula green.  This version plays 330 for most, stretching to 383 with a whopping carry of about 240 to carry the lake from the back.  (A playable course is really changed with the back tees on 3 (+53), 11 (+105), and 13 (+31 to make it 634)).

Other notable holes are #4 (the owner asked that two trees stay up - the entire course was a cut-through - on the interior of the dogleg), #5 (a punishing hole for those unable to carry the lake fronting all the way to the green), #10 (a short par 5 at 470 max with an extremely narrow fairway the whole way... water up the right), #11 (where a drive-wedge hole of 339 becomes 444 through a forest for anyone on the back tee - 7102 total), and #14... one of the coolest par 3s I've seen anywhere with bunkers built into mounds that almost completely hide the green.  You know it is there, but you can't quite bring yourself to believe it.

Honestly, I drove it so poorly all day that I can't fairly comment on the difficulty.  Two U of M players have shot 65, one of them doing so with a 29 on the back.  So it can be done.  Having IMMACULATE greens to put on doesn't hurt for guys who really can play.  Course conditions were unreal.  The only blemishes I could see are on fairways that are very narrow which leads to everyone playing from the same spot.

I'll be coming back with comments on my Saturday (Deacon's Lodge) and Sunday (Golden Eagle) rounds over the weekend.