Okay, I think I'm getting closer to clearing this up. Here are excerpts from a story in the March 10, 1917, Minneapolis Morning Tribune:
William D. Clark, the Minneapolis Golf Club professional, takes up his duties in two weeks. He will return to the Omaha Field Club, from where he comes, in a few days to wind up his affairs there and will come back here in a week or 10 days. He will be given charge of the construction work on the course, and while the links are being built will be able to give a few lessons.
It is hoped to have the temporary course of the club ready for pay by May 1. As soon as the snow leaves a large crew of men will be put at work to arrange the temporary course for play. The nine holes will be laid out on meadow land, which can be easily converted into ground suitable for play.
From the April 1, 1917 Tribune:
W. D. Clark, the Minneapolis club pro, said last night that by the end of this week he would have the temporary nine-hole course ready for play...Clark is going to pull something new this week in the form of a clay model of the course. As soon as he is able to get thoroughly acquainted with the contour of the land and the plan of the links as mapped out by Willie Park, he will start his model. He plans to have one topographical map showing the entire course and others for each of the holes, showing all bunkers, hazards, the greens, tees, fairgreens and rough.
And here's the story that ran in the Tribune on July 22, 1917, when the full course was finally ready to open:
Members of the Minneapolis Golf Club will formally open the new 18-hole course of the club at a dinner at the clubhouse next Wednesday night.
The new course, which has been planned and constructed by Bill Clark, Minneapolis club professional, is 5,250 yards in length. The out nine holes total 2,975 and the second nine is 2,275 yards long. The longest hole of the new course is the 545-yard seventh."
Now, how did Bill Clark suddenly get the credit? The second writer didn't read the first writer's clips? Clark decided to cut himself in for the architectural laurels? Obviously he worked on the course -- from my reading about Twin Cities clubs back then, most head pros did a certain amount of design work on their courses, from adding bunkers to occasionally moving a green or a tee. But it still looks as though Clark was working off Park's plan when he arrived in Minneapolis in March. The course had obviously been begun the previous fall.
Here's an oddity, though: That 545-yard seventh hole isn't found on the Park routing map that turned up in the civil engineer's offices. On that map, the seventh hole is a 126-yard par 3 that disappeared when the course was re-routed in 1920. But the seventh hole in the Ross re-routing wasn't a 545-yard par 5, either; it was a 446-yard par 4 -- pretty much identical to the hole as it exists today. The ninth hole on the Park routing is listed at 546 yards -- maybe the writer got the wrong hole. It happens. In any event, that hole doesn't exist today, by any number.
For those who might be following along on this thread without knowing much about Minneapolis Golf Club, it was the site of the 1950 U.S. Amateur and the 1959 PGA.