Minnesota Golfer - Spring 2020 - 34

But the man toting the loudest bell was Theodore
Wirth, superintendent of the Minneapolis Park
Board.
" Hundreds of persons played their fi rst round
there and in a short time were raving golf bugs. "
Although no new public courses were born
The Impetus
On April 26, 1916, Wirth formally proposed
the establishment of a nine-hole golf course at
Glenwood Park, three miles northwest of downtown.
The park was renamed Theodore Wirth
Park in 1938 and still goes by that name today.
Wirth suggested that the course could be put in
operation for $500 and maintained for the rest
of the season with an additional $900. A daily
fee of 25 cents was recommended.
The plan was referred to the park board's
standing committee on playgrounds. On May
2, the committee approved Wirth's recommendation.
Glenwood Park, Minnesota's fi rst public
golf course, opened on June 7, 1916, with
nine holes featuring clay tees and sand greens.
No green fees were charged.
The park board reported in its September
minutes that attendance was 6,150 between
opening day and Sept. 4 of that year. In
" From Fields to Fairways, " Shefchik reported
that 12,441 rounds were played in 1916 at
Glenwood, followed by more than 50,000 in
1917.
Public golf had taxied onto a runway in
Minnesota-or at least on a few dozen acres in
the Twin Cities. It was about to take off.
Courses Multiply
In March 1917, Minneapolis Tribune columnist
Yale H. Squire wrote that the course count in
Minneapolis would grow from four to 10 that year.
" Foremost [reason] is the creation last summer of
the public course at Glenwood park, " Squire wrote.
HILLTOP GOLF LINKS
on the west side of the Mississippi, 1917 brought
public golf to St. Paul in the form of Phalen
Park. Columbia followed in Minneapolis in
1919, and a spigot opened in the 1920s.
On April 18, 1920, Glenwood Park hosted
251 golfers, and more than 100 players
made their way around the original six-hole
Columbia course, according to the next day's
Minneapolis Tribune. Club pros Lynn Carroll
and Tom Comer " stated that a surprising
number of the early season players were men
who are taking up the game for the fi rst time.
There was also a smattering of women on the
public courses. "
A Minnesota golf course chronology published
in 2002 states that 71 public and private
golf courses opened in the 1920s. The actual
total was well over 100, but the chronology
does not list any of the dozens of courses that
opened in the '20s and later shut down in
the 1930s or '40s. Many of these were either
municipal courses or operated by local clubs,
but they were open to public play (at least
on a limited basis).
Two historically signifi cant public courses
were near each other. Armour-operated
by Minneapolis Parks but technically in St.
Anthony-was the only Minneapolis golf
course that featured grass greens and tees
in 1925. Coincidentally, it would later be
named Francis A. Gross, the namesake
of whom was on the standing committee
that gave birth to the Glenwood
course. The long-defunct Hilltop Public Golf Links
in Columbia Heights, established in 1927, is considered
to have been the fi rst privately owned public
course in Minnesota.
Public golf in Minnesota had gotten off the
ground. Would it fl y in formation?
In The People's Game, Part
2 (Summer issue of Minnesota
Golfer) public golf grows, with
the help of public women golfers.
Joe Bissen is a copy editor
at the Star Tribune and
author of the book " Fore! Gone.
Minnesota's Lost Golf Courses,
1897-1999. " His second book
on lost golf courses will be published
in 2020. MG
MEMORABILIA COURTESY OF JOE GLADKE
34
MINNESOTAGOLFER Spring 2020
mngolf.org
PHOTO COURTESY OF JIM BJORK
http://www.mngolf.org
Minnesota Golfer - Spring 2020

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