In 1991, stockbroker Dennis Olson opened Albion Ridges, 27 holes an hour west of Minneapolis, as an affordable analog to Interlachen, the venerable Twin Cities country club. "I wanted to call this place Outerlachen," says Olson, 72, overlooking his course.
"You always hear about the trouble golf is in," says Olson, in the almost inaudible way of native Minnesotans. "That's because a lot of people have done it the wrong way. They're selling real estate, not golf. Here, beers are two dollars. There's no restaurant. A sandwich, chips and a drink from the fridge case cost five bucks. Those guys over there are playing golf right now." He gestures to the next table in the clubhouse, where men are playing dice golf and drinking two-dollar beer from the can and insulting one another in the tradition of 19th holes everywhere.
A plaque lists the ladies' course champions by year. Olson's wife, JoAnn, seems to win it every other year.
"What happens in the years she doesn't win?" I ask him.
"Someone else shows," he says.
I had just played the course in the kind of gale that is common in Albion Township. ("Albion" is the original name of Great Britain.) The flags are custom-made five inches shorter so as not to blow away, and even then we had a blind approach to the seventh green on the Granite Nine, as the midget flag had been borne away on the wind. The other sticks were almost bent double, the flags flapping like the raincoat tails of a hurricane reporter.
The course is ringed by silos and soybean fields, all visible from the raised Porta-Potties that require the full-bladdered golfer to ascend a small set of stairs before relieving himself. My foursome referred to each one, with admiration, as an "elevated pee box."
On the Boulder Nine, general manager Brooks Ellingson had stopped his cart at No. 6 and warned: "This is where the course toughens up. My buddies and I call the next few holes our Amen Corner."
It was an important reminder: Every public course is someone's private club. After the round, as I headed for the clubhouse -- my hand on my head to keep my hat from blowing off -- I was thinking of Albion as my own quasi-private sanctuary: A-Gusty National.
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Apart from a brief country-club membership a decade ago, I have played public courses almost exclusively in my life, though exclusive is perhaps the wrong word when it comes to public golf.
The city I grew up in, Bloomington, Minn., is home to what is probably the most-played course in the state: Dwan Golf Club. Dwan (rhymes with "swan") opened in 1970 on land donated to the city by Dr. Paul Dwan.
"It was originally intended to be a community center," says Rick Sitek, the resident pro and golf manager.
"And, in a way, that's what it has become."
The course is a mile from Minnesota Valley Country Club, where I was once a member. But playing Dwan, I never felt like a man living in his tool shed, within sight of his former mansion, after his wife had thrown him out of the house. On the contrary: Dwan is beautifully maintained and so full of birdsong that it almost sounds piped in.
In winter, the clubhouse stays open for breakfast and lunch, allowing cribbage and bridge players to enjoy the Snack Bar's beloved cheese-and-onion-and-bacon Dwan Burgers year-round. "If I was playing Hazeltine, I'd come here after the round to get a Dwanny Burger," says a guy named Stu, biting into this double-bypass-on-a-bun.
Everyone knows everyone at Dwan. "People treat it very much like their private club, in both the good and bad aspects of that," says Sitek, who has been at Dwan for 20 years. "Some come in without calling for a tee time, and when we tell them there's no room, they say, 'But I always play on this day at this time.' "
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