Minnesota Golfer - Directory 2020 - 39

Rod Lidenberg
1950-2019
Kudos for Content
Rodney D.
" Rod "
Lidenberg, 69 of St. Louis
Park, passed away Nov.
19. Lidenberg was born
in Fargo, North Dakota,
played varsity golf for
Fargo South High School
and graduated from North
Dakota State University
with a degree in English
Literature. While there, he
played golf and later coached the men's
and women's golf teams.
and teaching the game.
He was one of the early
golf professionals in the
country to earn the PGA
Master Professional designation.
Over a 45-year
career, Lidenberg taught
a variety of golfers, from
beginners to tour professionals,
was named the
Minnesota PGA Teacher
Lidenberg
made a career out of his passion for golf
Steven L. Haagenson
1956-2019
Steven L. " Steve " Haagenson,
63,
passed away
of Phoenix, Ariz.,
Dec.
9.
Haagenson was born
in Rochester, Minn.,
and raised in Chatfi eld
where he played multiple
sports,
including golf.
He became a golf professional
and worked at
several prominent Twin
Cities golf clubs, including Bearpath
Golf & Country Club, Timber Creek
Leo Friesen
1935-2019
Leo Friesen, 84, of Bloomington,
Minn.,
passed
away Dec. 19. Born in
Faribault, Friesen graduated
from Bethlehem
Academy and served in
the U.S. Army. After a
long and distinguished
career in the grocery
business,
where being
the general manager of
Byerly's was one of his favorite posts,
Friesen would spend winters at The
Villages-an adult retirement community
in central Florida-
with his wife, Arlene. For
the last 21 years, Friesen,
an avid golfer, served on
the MGA's South Course
Rating team. He visited
more than 1,000 golf
courses to measure and
rate them,
serving as
an integral part of the
USGA Handicap System
in Minnesota. A celebration of life will
be held July 21, 2020, at St. Edwards
Church, Bloomington.
Golf Course,
and
Wayzata Country Club.
Haagenson was elected
to the board of the
Minnesota Section of the
PGA and served as section
president in 2003. He
was awarded the section's
Golf Professional of the
Year in 2004. Haagenson
then moved to Arizona to
continue his golf career at Tonto Verde
Golf Club near Scottsdale.
of the Year three times, and was named
to Golf Magazine's Top 100 Teachers in
America.
MGA's publication, Minnesota
Golfer magazine, grabbed four
awards at the 23rd Annual
MMPA Excellence Awards Nov.
7. The Minnesota Media &
Publishing Association's annual
ceremony, held at Aria in downtown
Minneapolis, was hosted by
WCCO's This Morning anchor Kim
Johnson, who called the golf award
winners (for " best in show " ) up to
the stage to receive their trophies.
Minnesota Golfer, along
with its publishing partner
MSP Communications Custom
Publishing, won a gold award for
best Regular Column (for Mark
Craig's " Pick up the Pace!, " in the
Fall 2018 issue), and three bronze
awards for best Directory (the
2019 issue), best Use of Data
Visualization/Infographic (Dean
Lavato's " Measuring Impact, "
in the Directory 2019 issue),
and best Editorial/Letter to the
Readers (for W.P. Ryan's " Gone Too
Soon, " in the Fall 2018 issue).
The Growler, a magazine
promoting the food and beverage
community published in St. Paul,
was chosen as the Peoples' Choice
award for the third consecutive
year, and Midwest Home, a magazine
promoting fi ne homes and
gardens published by Greenspring
Media, was named the 2019
Magazine of the Year.
Since 2000, Minnesota Golfer
magazine has been recognized
with more than 80 MMPA
Publishing Excellence Awards.
mngolf.org
Directory 2020 MINNESOTAGOLFER
39
DIRECTORY 2019 * $9.95
OLIVIA HERRICK
MGA WOMEN'S
PLAYER OF THE YEAR
BACK
BACKSPIN
* BY MARK CRAIG *
Pick Up the Pace!
Making a case for fast play-with the help of
slow play's sworn enemy.
S
orry, Tiger, but my dream foursome would include
Jack, Arnie and Tom.
Tom Watson?
No. Tom Abts.
Abts hasn't won five British Opens, two green jackets or
a U.S. Open. But the 62-year-old general manager and head
golf pro at Victoria's Deer Run Golf Club is a major champion
of fast play.
Bless you, Tom.
And bless your blog ( " Tom's Rants " at deerrungolf.com),
which never sugarcoats the notion that four hours of golf is
a wonderful pace while five-plus hours is a wretched experience
akin to sitting behind four stalled cars
on I-494 at rush hour.
" It's definitely one of my favorite subjects, "
says the sworn enemy of slow play. " The
worst offenses are from the players who are
knowingly slow and insist that it's their right
to play at any pace they desire, even if it backs
up the whole course. "
Preach it, Tom.
" The offenders come in all forms, " he says.
" Young and old. Rookie and experienced.
Male and female. It's an attitude of entitlement
at the expense of everyone else. "
Like many, I've thought for years that pace
TOP GAME
OF
MEET THE 2018 PLAYERS OF THE YEAR
one hour, 55 minutes, they were kicked off the golf course.
When I started sending people packing, everyone realized that
I was serious, and they changed their ways or didn't come to
Deer Run anymore. "
As someone who's had a bad stretch of playing behind slow
golfers this year, bless you, Tom.
Abts has been at Deer Run since 1991. He was the 2017
Minnesota PGA Professional of the Year. And while he no
THEIR
PLUS
2018 CLUB CHAMPIONS
PAGE 26
longer gives slow golfers the boot at the turn, he's not shy in
how he tries to educate them via his blog.
He gives the usual USGA-sounding tips. Play the right set
" The worst offenses
are from the
players who are
knowingly slow and
insist that it's their
right to play at any
pace they desire,
even if it backs up
the whole course. "
of play is the biggest problem facing golf. That's how I came to
meet Abts years ago after hearing that he had instituted " Fast
Play Fridays " at Deer Run.
We played a round of golf together. On a Fast Play Friday.
And it ... was ... awesome.
Everyone who came to the course that day was dedicated
to playing in four hours, which, as Abts explains, isn't fast but
rather " equivalent to driving 60 mph on the freeway. " In other
words: respectful-and not slow.
" Fast Play Fridays " don't exist anymore.
" But it accomplished what I had hoped for: It changed our
culture [at Deer Run], " Abts says.
" We demanded they play fast. We had rangers on every
three holes. And if the players didn't finish the front nine in
40
of tees. Play " ready golf. " Write your scores down and put your
putters away at the next tee.
But Tom adds some color analysis you
won't find on a USGA website. Such as, " Save
your funny stories for waiting situations " or
" Don't use a long setup routine. It doesn't
help your game and is just annoying. "
Abts got more than 200 responses within
hours of posting a blog on slow play and
" road rage. "
" We had a golfer who decided to make a
phone call while playing, " Abts says. " I presumed
he quit playing and had his playing
partners continue without him. Wrong. "
The entire foursome stopped playing and
apparently wouldn't let the group behind pass through. So the
group behind hit into them.
Words were exchanged. Someone in the front group
claimed he was threatened with a gun. Next thing they knew,
three police cars were pulling into Deer Run's parking lot.
" I just don't get it, " Abts wrote. " A four-hour pace of play is
reasonable. Making your playing partners wait five minutes
while you talk on the phone is unreasonable. Calling the police
for an imaginary threat is unreasonable. Are people really
this selfish and self-absorbed? I'm not surprised at the rude
drivers I see on the road. But I expect more from golfers. "
Mark Craig is the NFL/Vikings columnist and a golf writer for
the Star Tribune.
$2.3B-GOLF'S ECONOMIC
IMPACT IN MINNESOTA
PAGE 34
SOPHIA YOEMANS
MGA JUNIOR GIRLS'
PLAYER OF THE YEAR
MINNESOTAGOLFER Fall 2018
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Minnesota Golfer - Directory 2020

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