MN90: Hazeltine National Golf Club

Totten “Tot” Heffelfinger was an amateur golfer who worried that Minnesota’s golf courses were becoming too small and cramped for a new era of hard-hitting pro golfers. What was needed was a bigger, better course. Britt Aamodt investigates the origins of Hazeltine National Golf Club.

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Producer: Britt Aamodt

Editorial support: Emily Krumberger

Mixing & mastering: Chris Harwood

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Transcript

Welcome to MN90: Minnesota History in 90 Seconds.

Totten Heffelfinger, former president of the United States Golf Association, worried that Minnesota's golf courses were getting too cramped and short for the new era of players coming up. Post-World War Two, they were this sport’s version of Babe Ruth. They swung hard and drove far. So Heffelfinger and fellow golf enthusiasts snapped up 1400 acres of farmland in Chaska along the Minnesota River. They hired architect Robert Trent Jones to transform the fields and pastureland into the Hazeltine National Golf Club, which opened in 1962, and within eight years, had hosted both the US Women's Open and the US Open. But it also came under fire from some players who claimed that the course was “one cow short of a farm.” Architect Jones went back to the drawing board, redesigning some of the country out of the country club, which resulted in the US Open’s return to Hazeltine in 1991. Heffelfinger was always proud of Hazeltine and lived in a house near the 10th hole until his death in 1987.

MN90 is produced by AMPERS, diverse radio for Minnesota's communities, made possible by funding from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Online at MN90.org.