Minnesota Golfer - Summer 2019 - 28

* BY W.P. RYAN *
W
This season, Interlaken Golf Club will commemorate its 101st anniversary. Here's a look at the history of the century-old site.
Indeed, on July 12 the game was offi cially consummated
illiam Jennings Bryan stepped off the 10:10 a.m. train
from Milwaukee on July 13, 1918, for a speaking
engagement in Fairmont, Minn., a railway town of
3,000 built around a chain of lakes in Martin County near Iowa.
Pre-television, pre-radio, pre-Twitter, Bryan's job was to drum up
support for the war in Europe by stressing the " fundamentals of
citizenship. "
Threatening weather at Interlaken Park sent the crowds home
early that Saturday, but not before Bryan, known as the " Great
American Orator, " thrilled some 3,000 people
with his speech on citizenship, patriotism, religion
and the allied push in France, reported the
local newspaper, the Fairmont Daily Sentinel.
Odds are long that golf was on the minds of
the thousands who assembled on the Interlaken
Park grounds that summer day, but a discerning
few would have remarked upon the park's newest
amenity: a nine-hole golf course.
The year before Bryan's visit, a local committee
hired Tom Bendelow, called the " Johnny
Appleseed of American Golf " for his prolifi c
golf course architecture, to lay out nine holes on
Interlaken Farm, a 67-acre tract of land south of
town. Bendelow wrote the mayor, F. E. Wade, of the site's potential,
its commanding views and favorable topography " creating
as fi ne a nine-hole golf course as you will fi nd [anywhere] in the
country ... nature has done wonders for you, " he added.
By June of 1918, the club had elected offi cers, set the membership
goal at 60 golfers at $50 each and submitted articles of incorporation
for the Interlaken Golf & Boat Club. A 40-foot water
tank was erected on the highest point in the land, and construction
on the adjacent clubhouse was proceeding apace under the
when " golfers from Fairmont and surrounding area fl ocked to
Interlaken to stroke the new nine-hole golf course, " the Daily
By June of 1918,
the club had elected
offi cers, set the
membership goal
at 60 golfers at $50
each and submitted
articles of incorporation
for the Interlaken
Golf & Boat Club.
Sentinel reported.
" The players of our well-known games make the best soldiers, "
the Canright ad copy claimed. Soon the families of Fairmont
would realize the full import of that message when the town's
fi rst war casualty was reported in the newspaper. In fact, Martin
County would see about 1,300 of its citizens activated, enlisted
or volunteer for military service, and at least 50
would give their lives, according to a post-war
report by Arthur M. Nelson.
In time the members would purchase the land
they were leasing for $300/acre (a real bargain)
and join the Minnesota Golf Association, whose
minutes, dated May 13, 1924, record that the
board voted " all favorably on the application " of
the Interlaken Golf & Boat Club of Fairmont.
After 50 years as a nine-holer, the Interlaken
board decided to expand the course to 18 holes
and increase membership to 350. The club purchased
an adjacent 76 acres and hired golf course
architect Don Herfort to work the original
Bendelow nine into a new 18-hole layout. The 6,500-yard course
opened July 27, 1969, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony featuring
at least two of the original founding members: Drs. W.L. Webb
and R.H. Zierke.
Interlaken Golf Club has hosted numerous MGA Amateur
supervision of E.H. Fritz.
" Golf is here to stay, " proclaimed an ad in the Fairmont Daily
Sentinel for Canright's Drug Store, which extolled the merits of
the game as " one of the greatest on earth. "
28
MINNESOTAGOLFER Summer 2019
and Players' (match play) championship qualifi ers, but the last
time the club hosted an MGA championship was 2002, when
Litchfi eld's John Sprieter posted 70-69-139 (5 under) to edge
J.B. Lloyd and Rick Passolt by two strokes, earning Sprieter his
second Mid-Amateur title.
Interlaken hosts an annual invitational tournament, Sept.
6-8, but new for this season is the club's Century Anniversary
Celebration, July 12-14. MG
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Minnesota Golfer - Summer 2019

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