Minnesota Golfer - Spring 2022 - 22

RISK
REWARD
New course openings are rare these days, but two
new Minnesota short courses are worth the shot.
By Joseph Obe rl e
CREATING A GOLF COURSE
during a period of renewed interest in the
game seems wise. But two new, short courses
(conceived before we ever heard of COVID19)
take advantage of a different trend in
golf: playing a quick nine holes. The Loop in
Chaska and The Gravel Pit in Brainerd open
this season and offer unique and inventive
layouts among Minnesota courses. Still,
decades after a golf boom and bust, why a
new course?
" People are excited for more opportunity.
It's getting tougher to find tee times, " says
Greg Kaiser, marketer and website developer
for The Gravel Pit (and a Brainerd resident).
" I don't know if it's just Covid that has driven
the business, but it's certainly growing here.
There's definitely a need for more golf. "
Short courses' smaller footprint generate
less maintenance expense than 18-hole tracks,
yet they require a surrounding community of
dedicated golfers to be successful-and both
The Loop and The Gravel Pit check those
boxes. But it may be their distinctive designs
that attracts golfers short on time and long on
love for the game.
The Loop
For approximately 10 years, Tim Anderson,
an entrepreneur with five start-ups under his
belt, worked to get The Loop built in Chaska.
The idea started with former Hazeltine
National GC head pro Mike Schultz and was
bolstered after Anderson met former touring
pro Jack Burke, Jr., at a tournament in
Houston, Texas.
" He says, 'Tim, golf has been really good
22
to you. What are you doing to give back?'
That really put a little gas on the fire, "
Anderson says. " The more I talked with people
about what is needed in golf, it morphed
into this project. People with disabilities are
vastly underserved. "
Anderson created the non-profit Barrier
Free Golf (née Learning Links) and joined
forces with the City of Chaska to redesign
the Chaska Par 30 course into a par 28 with
access for disabled golfers. The project's four
pillars are disability access as a core design
feature, building a course that is fun for
everybody,
environmental
sustainability
and financial sustainability.
" I believe we are the only one in the country
who is doing all four of those things, "
Anderson says. " Courses have, after the
fact, been adapted to help disabled players,
but I don't think it has ever been a core
design feature. "
The peripatetic Anderson, a member at
North Berwick Golf Club in Scotland, met
and eventually hired architect (and North
Berwick native) Benjamin Warren to lead the
project. Warren, 41, and a former software
engineer, started in golf course architecture
late, but jumped into the seat of a shaper
machine for Tom Doak's firm on Grand
Saint-Emilionnais Golf Club in France,
then with Gil Hanse on the Rio de Janeiro
Olympic GC and more recently with Coore
& Crenshaw and quickly moved up to designing
his own tracks. Ultimately, he bid on The
Loop because of its unique challenge.
" It's a fascinating project, " Warren says. " I
never heard of my contemporaries ever working
on a course that had disability access as
The Loop
MINNESOTAGOLFER Spring 2022
mngolf.org
PHOTO: BARRIER FREE GOLF
http://www.mngolf.org
Minnesota Golfer - Spring 2022

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