The trend of golf-course closings in Minnesota has not stopped, though at least the toll from the 2014 season isn’t quite as heavy at this point as it was in 2013.

Four Minnesota courses closed last season, plus one just across the border in Wisconsin. This year, three have been shuttered.

Closed for good are Hastings Country Club (opened in 1947), Begin Oaks in Plymouth (pictured above, opened in 2000) and Minnetonka Country Club in Excelsior (opened in 1961). Update and revision, summer 2015: Hastings Country Club has reopened as a public venue, though it is up for sale and could yet become a lost course. And though the club was established in 1947, the origins of golf in Hastings date to 1924. Related post coming soon. Subsequent revision, January 2017: Hastings CC was sold in November 2014 to private investors and remains open. It has been renamed Dakota Pines Golf Club. As for more history of golf in Hastings, see the “Valley View: The Hastings Bridge” post on this website.

I’m not privy to details other than what’s been in the news, so links to three news stories are posted below. According to my count, that makes 29 golf courses abandoned in Minnesota since the year 2000. (Update, Nov. 14: I have come across one more that previously wasn’t on my list, so there are more than 29 on that other post.) Add in the additional 80+ covered in “Fore Gone. Minnesota’s Lost Golf Courses 1897-1999,” and it makes well more than 100 lost golf courses in the state’s history.

Here are the links to news stories (apologies; I can’t get the direct linking device to work):

Hastings CC: http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_26694896/hastings-country-club-closed-its-140-acres-sale

Minnetonka CC: http://www.startribune.com/local/west/280114182.html

Begin Oaks: http://www.twelve.tv/news/newsitem.aspx?newsid=324&newsitemid=25693

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Joe Bissen

Joe Bissen is a Caledonia, Minnesota, native and former golf letter-winner at Winona State University. He is a retired sports copy editor at the Minneapolis Star Tribune and St. Paul Pioneer Press and former sports editor of the Duluth News-Tribune. His writing has appeared in Minnesota Golfer and Mpls.St.Paul magazines. He lives in South St. Paul, MN. Joe's award-winning first book, "Fore! Gone. Minnesota's Lost Golf Courses 1897-1999," was released in December 2013, and a follow-up, "More! Gone. Minnesota's Lost Golf Courses, Part II" was released in July 2020. The books are most readily available online at Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble (bn.com). He continues to write about lost courses on this website and has uncovered more than 245 of them.

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