Official flag raising when the course was opened in 1925. Francis A. Gross is third from the right. (Provided)
A hundred years ago, Minneapolis unveiled its newest golf venue, tucked into the rolling southern hills of St. Anthony Village — the Armour Golf Course.
Never heard of it?
In 1947, the Minneapolis Park Board changed the course’s name from Armour, the meat-packing company that donated the land in 1925, to Francis A. Gross Golf Club. Gross was a long-time Park Board commissioner.
It wasn’t the first name change for the course. For a few months in 1925, it was named the St. Anthony Golf Course, but it quickly reverted back to Armour, perhaps as part of the land donation deal.
Armour, a Chicago-based meat packer, had acquired the land some years earlier with the thought of establishing a plant near the New Brighton stockyards. Instead the company put its dollars into a new plant near the South St. Paul stockyards and the 800 acres in St. Anthony were never developed.
The Minneapolis Park Board had its eyes on the land in 1912 in order to develop Stinson Boulevard all the way to the eastern limits of the city. Armour was happy to comply. It not only donated the land to the city — it also included a large parcel where St. Anthony Parkway was built at the company’s expense.
The city already had two golf courses: Wirth, originally called Glenwood (1916), and Columbia (1919). They had proved to be very popular in the post-World War I
Roaring ‘20s culture. Golf was booming, and the first American golf heroes like Francis Ouimet, Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen became household names.
Armour was very generous with the city, offering the land, the development and a small clubhouse for about $210,000, which the city was to pay off over the next 20 years from proceeds from the course. No taxpayer money was involved.
William D. Clark of Minneapolis, a native of Scotland, designed the course, as he had done at Wirth and Columbia and later at Oak Ridge, Golden Valley Country Club and Meadowbrook. It was the first course in Minneapolis to have grass greens and tees. Prior to that, the courses had sand greens and clay tee boxes.
The charge for playing the course that first year was set at $1 for 18 holes, but it was later dropped to 50 cents a round because the just-opened course was very rough. Columbia and Wirth charged 40 cents a round.
Hard Times
The Great Depression wasn’t as kind to America’s love of golf as the Jazz Age, and in the 1930s the number of rounds dropped dramatically. The fee, which had been set at 75 cents a round, was reduced to 50 cents again.
Armour came to the rescue and absorbed much of the revenue losses, and the company even contributed a $7,000 sprinkler system to the course, the first one in the city. But the course continued to struggle and operating debt continued to mount. By 1947, even as rounds increased after World War II, the debt grew to $320,000.
Things came to a head that year. Armour gave an ultimatum to the city: pay up or it would sell the land to an interested buyer — the cemetery across St. Anthony Parkway. The city council hustled to avoid the sale and approved $320,000 in bonds. Armour again came to the rescue and forgave all the interest payments the city had missed.
And so, in 1947, the city finally owned the golf course. The bonds were paid off, with revenue from all five Minneapolis courses helping out, by 1967. The course was renamed in 1947 to honor Gross, who had been instrumental in saving it from the tombstones.
The small clubhouse was remodeled in 1949 and remodeled again in 1963. Also in 1963, four tee boxes were relocated and the fairways lengthened to prepare for Gross hosting the National Amateur Public Links tournament.
In 1980, the clubhouse was demolished and replaced with a new $1 million facility. In 1987, over 62,000 rounds were played at Gross, the largest number ever for a city course. Since 2000, rounds have tapered off generally in golf, and the average at Gross has now dipped to the low 40,000s.
In 2013, the course added two golf simulators which allow golfers to practice year-round.
Walter Hagen’s silhouette is the basis for the logo. (Provided)
Hagen honored
Dave Bratland has been manager at the course since 2009 and has worked at the course since he was a teenager growing up in St. Anthony in the early ‘80s.
“It’s been 100 years, but the layout of the course is the same. It was a great layout and it didn’t need to change. It’s easy to walk. It’s really held its own,” Bratland said.
Over the years, some great Minnesota golfers such as Don Berry, Gene Hanson and Jerilyn Britz, a U.S. Women’s Open champion in 1979, have played the course.
But perhaps the most famous golfer to tread the Gross links was Walter Hagen, an 11-time major champion. Hagen is considered to be the father of modern professional golf.
In 1925, Hagen agreed to play in a two-person, best-ball tournament at Gross. It was great publicity for the just-opened golf course. Hagen teamed with Les Bolstad, the golf coach at the University of Minnesota, and they beat a team of talented amateurs 4 and 3. Hagen shot a 73, breaking the course record by three strokes.
On July 19 this year, exactly 100 years to the day since Hagen played a round, Gross will host a similar two-person, best-ball event. “We’ve invited all our men’s and women’s clubs and some others to participate,” Bratland said.
The centennial will also be marked with the installation of a wooden statue of Hagen just behind the 18th green.
“We had to remove a large tree behind the green, but we saved a 10-foot section of the trunk,” Bratland said “A wood sculptor will be creating a statue of Hagen that will stand just where the tree stood.” It will be surrounded by an American Flag and two small memorial markers.
The statue will represent Hagen as he looked in a signed picture of himself that was given to Bolstad. The picture also was used to do the cutout image of Hagen swinging a club that is used as the Gross Golf Course logo.
“I can foresee that a lot of people in the future will come off the 18th hole and have their picture taken with Walter Hagen,” Bratlund said.
Otherwise, Bratland invites everybody to Gross for a centennial round of golf. Fees for adults, including a cart, are $69 a round. “The course came through the winter great, and the greens and fairways are in very good shape.”