Joe Bissen happens to be a sports copy editor here at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and a frequent contributor to Minnesota Golfer magazine.
I told him about this thread, and volunteered to post his reply:
Thanks for the shout out, Mr. Brauer. My book on Minnesota's lost courses should be out by early December.
If readers are looking for an Upper Midwest redux of Daniel Wexler's books on lost courses, I'm afraid they won't get it here (though I confess I haven't read his works). Can't say the words "Redan" or "Biarritz" ever appear in the book, though I would have been happy to include them had anyone ever offered evidence there was such a feature on a Minnesota lost course.
My book isn't so much about golf design as it is a look at the many courses that have disappeared, and the clubs that operated them, with a fair amount of first-person recollection. There's a bit of an offbeat spirit at play, too -- as with the guy who carried a monkey around on his shoulders on one course, or the course built next to the sewage disposal plant in another place.
There are more posts about lost courses, and courses extant, on my website:
www.foregonegolf.com. There should soon be information on pre-ordering the book.
My thanks to Rick Shefchik, a contributor here, for considerable help in researching.
Joe Bissen