GOLFWEEK’S
BEST
BRADLEY S. KLEIN
I have seen the future of golf,
and it looks like a ten-some in
cargo pants.
For too long, the game’s
values seemingly have been
dominated by PGA Tour
multimillionaires, private-club
members trying to impress their
guests and slow-playing zombies
clad in khaki slacks and white
golf shirts (collared, of course).
A visit to the country’s
“flyover zone” will cure such
misperceptions – or at least
instill faith that an alternative
spirit of down-to-earth public golf
is very much alive.
The epiphany came on a cold
July day this summer, as I stood
on the first tee at Minot Country
GOLF WEEK/TRACY WILCOX
Club watching a charity outing gather for a shotgun start.
It was 50 degrees, the wind about 15 mph and the threat of
rain palpable. Yet here were 180 people, each having paid
$75 to support the Minot State University Athletic
Department. (Go, Beavers!)
Sweatshirts predominated, and there were a few hearty
souls dressed in T-shirts. As for pants, well, even among
the men, shorts outnumbered full-length slacks by 2 to 1.
And, of course, those cargo pants – ideal for storage space.
What I needed was a helmet, because we were heading
off two teams per hole as ten-somes. It was a mad scramble,
with more golf balls flying than at a Tokyo practice range.
Pace of play turned out better than anyone predicted.
In 51⁄ 2 hours we were done and could head inside to refuel.
What Steve Bain, executive director of the North Dakota
Golf Association, refers to as “aiming fluid” is a staple of
the golf scene, even at state events. When I attended the
1996 North Dakota State Men’s Stroke Play Championship
at newly opened The Links of North Dakota in Williston,
the drink stand at the halfway house consisted of a beer
keg. In retrospect, I should not have been surprised to see
contestants in sandals, boots with golf spikes or tank tops.
When asked whether a dress code was in place for
the eight statewide championships he runs, including
next week’s three-man best ball (and, yes, they go off
in six-somes), Bain seemed taken aback.
“Of course we do,” he said. “Shirts.”
Welcome to North Dakota, where golf on a vast,
windswept prairie is fun, inexpensive and unpretentious.
States with one member in the House of Representatives
generally are not known as golf destinations. But the
North Dakota Tourism Division makes a big deal out of its
Lewis & Clark Golf Trail. The
20 public layouts sprawl across
the state’s western expanse and
include badlands, grasslands
and farmland layouts.
Actually, the state’s 105 golf
courses are all publicly available,
even the predominantly private-membership clubs. With frigid
winters and short winter daylight,
it’s no surprise that folks here
like to play outdoors when
the weather allows.
Sara Otte Coleman, director
of the Tourism Division, points
out that with most of the state
on the western edge of the
Central time zone, residents
effectively enjoy an extra hour
of late sunlight for golf after
work. The state sports a golf-
participation rate that is among the best in the country.
“Along with hunting, fishing and mountain biking,
golf is a big draw,” Coleman said.
It’s easy to get things done here, such as seeing
government officials. For starters, Coleman’s office in
Bismarck is easy to find. “Just take the highway down
from Minot and turn left at the Space Alien Café. We’re
right behind it,” she told me.
Her job selling the virtues of North Dakota is made easier
because the economy is expanding, with unemployment at
about 4 percent, an anticipated $700 million state budget
surplus and oil and gas development burgeoning. Among
those helping her make the case is Gov. John Hoeven,
a second-term Republican who is a midhandicapper and
member of Minot CC. His dad, Jack, a career banker
and also a Minot CC member, spearheaded the local
fundraising effort for the city’s First Tee facility, the
Jack Hoeven Wee Links Golf Course ($1 green fee for
children; $5 for ages 14 and older).
This July, state junior golfers found a local role model.
Amy Anderson, 17, of Oxbow, won the U.S. Girls’ Junior,
joining Beverly Hanson (1950 U.S. Women’s Amateur),
Mike Podolak (1984 U.S. Mid-Amateur) and Shane
McMenamy (1996 U.S. Junior Amateur) as the only
North Dakotans to hold national golf titles.
There’s a serious lesson to be gleaned from the spirit
of North Dakota golf. In an era when the industry struggles
to retain players, the future of the game requires making
sure that golf is inexpensive, accessible and socially
welcoming.
Of course, those extra daylight hours after work help,
too.
