Dan,
Will I ever live that one down? It was a suicidal chipmunk, I swear. He ran right under the tire. I had no chance. BTW, although I drove by it later, I had nothing to do with that big dead bear on I35 near Pineville last week.....let's just put those rumors to rest.
When I first opened GRL, they had a press day and the pro at Superior National told me they had a better site, but we had the better course. It had just opened when the Legend was opening. When I went over there, I agreed in general.
It is 18 holes from Don Herfort, which fit the land nicely but have some bland features. Joel Goldstrand added nine holes, which include the signature fifth and sixth Canyon, that draws the play, but some others in blah land, and which are just too tough (IHMO) for resort play. The courses are mixed and matched. We tried to add some back tee length, but keep or shorten the rest of the course. Back tees were only 6400 yards or so.
Besides the typical push back 5-10 yards most holes, we are putting the back tee for River 3 across the Poplar River, near 2 Green. We re-routed River 6-7-8 from a 3-short 4-awkward 5 to a long 4-short 4- par 3 arrangement to fit the land better. That drops par to 71 with two near 500 yard par 4 holes from the backs. However, 495 downhill 100 feet doesn't play 495, so I didn't want to stretch that out to an easy five.
We will redo the River Nine next year, and the Canyon Nine after that. For now, they want to see if the financial results hold true before committing to the Mountain Nine, which makes sense to me.
As to Jim's questions, Cook County owns it, and it was built to attract tourist play, but is run more like a muni, so the business plan is reverting back to its original mission statement. It is sparsely populated up there, so it makes sense. They should get regular play from the millions of tourists, plus Duluth and Thunder Bay, Ontario and the rest of Minnesota and central Canada.