Last weekend I played a rare 36 holes in one day: the early round at The Summit Golf Club in Cannon Falls and the later round at the Meadows of Mystic Lake in Prior Lake. I’ve written about both courses earlier in the year, but I didn’t take any pictures of The Summit previously. Check out the 7MM photo section for lots of recent additions.
We paid our first visit this year to Inver Wood Golf Course in Inver Grove Heights last week. This city-owned Garrett Gill design is a popular layout that was very busy on a Saturday afternoon. Pace of play was a little slow on the front nine, but several groups dropped out at the turn and the rangers were doing a good job of keeping things moving.
A pair of wild turkeys paid us a visit on the par-5 seventh hole and I just love that this course has no houses on it. The overall conditioning was very good, especially compared to some of the other damage I’ve seen recently on local courses. The dramatic par-3 twelfth hole was as exciting as ever, but I realized that this is really a tough course for the average golfer. Very different from the usual wide-open muni course.
Earlier this week, we took the family to my 37th annual visit to the Minnesota State Fair in Falcon Heights. The highlight for me was going to the top of the DNR’s fire tower–an attraction that has been closed since 1978. The new Miracle of Birth and Eco Experience buildings were also very nice.
Of course, there are really only two reasons to go to the fair: people-watching and food. The crowds have been light due to the rainy weather, but I still managed to find a few people I knew. Favorite T-shirt sighting: black shirt with white letters – “I AM A LIAR.”
It’s getting really expensive to eat at the fair, so my intake is controlled as much by my wallet as by my desire to keep my weight in check. The list this year:
Only missed out on the french fries and the original dairy building malts…DK
Above: tinted primer applied earlier this week. Today we wrapped up most of the painting: navy blue walls, white columns. One section was left blank, as we are waiting for the projector so we can paint the screen accurately (Silverscreen, by Behr). Tomorrow we get more estimates for flooring and will attempt to locate some nice used room dividers…DK
Last night I drove my kids to Grand Marais on the North Shore of Lake Superior to stay with my parents for a few days before school starts. Four hours and 15 minutes door-to-door, stayed overnight, then left at 7:30 a.m. to return for more painting in the new office. This was my first, and likely only, visit there this summer, unfortunately. Sven and Ole’s was closed, but I did get some donuts at the donut shop…DK
Dellwood Hills Golf Club, a private club located in the northeast suburbs, is offering a fall membership promotion. Join now and only pay social dues until April 30, 2007 ($40 per month). Initiation fees start at $6,000 for one member and include $500 stock. Click here to download a PDF information sheet from the club.
The Wild have a nice booth at the Minnesota State Fair on the second floor of the Grandstand, with special guests every day.
Today Mark Parrish was signing photos from 3:30-4:30 and was really personable. He seemed to be very happy to be back in Minnesota and anxious to start playing.
Picked up tickets for two more games: October 12th versus Washington and October 27th versus Anaheim. Only three weeks to pre-season…DK
Our attempt at a company golf outing ending with lightning and a downpour that lasted about an hour and thoroughly drenched Highland National Golf Course in St. Paul. After everyone left, I completed my round when the rain stopped and played the last nine holes in about 75 minutes.
I played Highland twice last year after the big re-do and thought it was an improvement over the previous course, but still had a lot of back-and-forth that end up being dangerous on crowded days. Garrett Gill (and former partner Paul Miller) did the re-design work here and I feel they made the most of the limited land available.
The greens are by far my favorite change–they are now very different from before with unique shapes, fast surfaces and much more undulation. They were in very good condition and most of the fairways were also above average. The rating and slope of this course from the whites are hard to believe: 69.3/114. I’d buy that for the old layout, but the new one has plenty of challenge for the bogey golfer. Time for the MGA rating team to revisit St. Paul.
I paid my fifth visit this season to Willingers Golf Club in Northfield this week. We practically had the place to ourselves and the weather was decent. My round started with the best drive I’ve ever had on one, then I reached the par-5 second hole in two for the first time. I parred every par-4 on the front side (except for bogey on the last), but played the four par threes in a combined nine over par. Ouch.
I noticed some turf damage today that was also apparent at Island View in Waconia. I almost never see this at Willingers and definately not at this time of year. Is something spreading? I really hope not, as late season golf in Minnesota is usually lush, uncrowded and cheap.
I had the opportunity to join Phil Callen, Bob Klas, Jr. and Ed Heil for the 2006 ProAct Golf Classic, held Monday at the Hastings Country Club in Hastings, Minnesota. ProAct is an Eagan-based non-profit that serves people with disabilities and is one of the benefitting charities of the Tapemark Charity Pro-Am.
The weather was perfect, the format was no-bogey scramble and the course was in beautiful condition. We managed to reach five-under-par, just a few strokes off the winning score of fifteen-under. This tournament was well-run and included a pre-round lunch, on-course contests (including hole-in-one contests on every par three), team photos, goodie bag, raffle, silent auction and buffet dinner afterwards. Thanks to Mr. Callen for the gracious invitation.
Last weekend we visited Keller Golf Course in St. Paul for an early morning round. There is just so much history at Keller (St. Paul Open, PGA Championship, Patty Berg Classic) that you can’t help but feel special playing there. The only drawback to Keller has been the slow pace of play. This time, though, it appears things have changed dramatically for the better. A ranger kept things moving, locating stray tee shots and helping us finish in under four hours. Playing well helps too–my 85 was low round of the year.
Dan Callahan, Head Professional at Island View Golf Club in Waconia (and Tapemark Charity Pro-Am player), welcomed us this morning to the first tee on a beautiful Saturday morning. We started behind a fivesome (one of my pet peeves), but Dan assured us that they were members and would not hold us up. He was right–our round took under four hours and we rarely had to wait.
Island View has always been a more expensive course ($49 walking), but the course conditioning and the unique layout have justified the cost. Unfortunately, the conditioning today was not as good as when I played here in 2004. There was a fair amount of winter damage in the fairways and one of their mowers is leaking fluid, which appears to have caused some issues on the greens (which were much slower than last time).
The layout, however, continues to shine. The short 465-yard, par-5 opening hole is a great way to start the round and the stretch of holes from number three through six are very scenic (too bad I forgot the camera today). There is a lot of elevation change and it seems like none of the side-by-side holes interfere with each other. The par-4 thirteenth hole has water everywhere and continues to stump me as to how best to play it off the tee. I did play the par 3′s better today, hitting three of the four, but unfortunately no birdies.
Tomorrow: Keller.
No, not the movie. I’m moving soon to new digs at work. I had a very nice office the past few years (friends called it the dorm room office), but HSRA is growing and the need for space in the school itself was dire. The new building owner offered us some space in the opposite end of the building at a good price–the catch is we have to finish it ourselves. The original contractor quote was quite high, so we are doing as much of the work ourselves as possible.
I created a new photo album in the photos section called Offices that has pictures of my old office and will have pictures of the new space as we progress though the next few weeks to completion. Here are some of the remaining tasks:
Our budget is limited, but I hope to get as many of things on my master plan as possible by the start of the school year. Things like Super Chexx Hockey, though, will probably have to wait…DK
Tonight we had a visit from my favorite insurance agent, Sam Welter of the Catholic Aid Association (CAA). I’m not Catholic, but my wife is and she worked at CAA for a number of years. At one point, I was also under contract as the web developer for the CAA website (which was just recently replaced).
We have several life insurance policies with them for every member of our family and I rolled over my pension when I left Northwest Airlines four (!) years ago. The purpose of tonight’s visit was to finally roll over my old Northwest 401K account as well. I was tired of getting mail from them and the recent bankruptcy events made me a little nervous (even though it is managed by CitiStreet). I have a new State Farm retirement plan with Studio 4, but I prefer to do business with Sam when I can.
The big news of the visit was a new term life product that is cheaper than what I currently have, but has very stringent approval guidelines. I’m applying for it, as it would give me significantly more coverage for the same amount I’m paying now. The shocker is that I’m a borderline applicant because my weight is too high for my height. I assume it’s based on the BMI chart published by CDC, but man is that thing skewed to what I feel are unrealistic weights for most people. I would need to move from my current 187 pounds to 173 pounds to escape the overweight bucket and get in the normal category. According to that same chart, I could weigh 129 pounds and still be normal. That’s crazy…
With no smoking, no drinking, no overnight hospitals visits ever and marathon number 10 coming up, I may still be too much of a risk to get a better deal on life insurance. Oh well…at least it motivated me to get out for another seven miles tonight…DK
Earlier this week, I participated in the Hawgs for Dogs John Massetti Memorial, also known as the Sixth Annual Guide Dogs of America Minnesota Chapter Charity Golf Tournament. Hosted by the Machinist Union District 143, the event was held at Crystal Lake Golf Club in Lakeville and helps raise approximately $100,000 annually for Guide Dogs of America.
The weather was perfect and the course was in great shape (as usual). Three teams tied in the scramble format event at eleven-under 60, with the tie-breaker going to the team from Sun Country Airlines. Thanks to the Cook family for inviting me to participate in memory of Guy Cook, father, grandfather and former IAM leader who recently passed away.
WWDC keeps attracting more people, but the trend has been to offer less each year. I hope it doesn’t slide too much–it’s still my favorite tech event of the year…DK
Today was the last day of WWDC 2006 and I’m currently at SFO waiting for my flight home. Security was no problem and we have another two hours to wait before our flight leaves. I bought the $10 day pass for internet access to pass the time and just filled out the online feedback survey for the conference (lots of feedback for them this year–more on that later).
We attended all three morning sessions, then walked over to Town Hall for lunch. I had Faith’s warm Smithfield ham and cheese toast with poached egg sandwich, which was really tasty, but small. After lunch, we walked over to the Embarcadero and re-traced my running route up to Fisherman’s Wharf and Ghirardelli Square. I took a ton of pictures and will upload them to the photo section when I get home.
After a chocolate ice cream cone at Ghirardelli’s, we waited about an hour to take a cable car back to the other side of town. We stopped at Macy’s Marketplace to pick up some Boudin sourdough bread loaves, then walked down to Mel’s Drive-In for dinner. Picked up the bags at the Marriott, then hit the road in a crazy cab ride to the airport (why is it that cab drivers get to drive as fast and reckless as they want and never seem to get pulled over?). We had a pretty great week: perfect weather, wonderful food and lots of learning opportunities. It’s going to be a busy few weeks at work with all of these new ideas…DK
The week is flying by quickly. Yesterday’s schedule was jam-packed with things to do. Dinner at Roy’s was great and we went to see Clerks II afterwards at the Metreon. Today, we had breakfast at the Marriott, attended the morning sessions, then walked over to Tommy’s Joynt for lunch. I had pastrami on sourdough and soaked in the unique atmosphere of the place. Now I’m finishing up the afternoon sessions before boarding the bus to the campus bash in Cupertino…DK
This morning I took the advice of the hotel concierge and ran a five mile out and back that went along Market Street to the Embarcadero and up to Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf. The iPod voice said my half-way point was right in front of the ticket booth for the boats to Alcatraz. It was a beautiful route on a beautiful day…DK
The food today was great: sesame chicken at the House of Nanking in Chinatown for lunch and a hot open-faced turkey sandwich with fries and vanilla milk shake at Lori’s Diner on Powell for dinner.
Tomorrow will be a bag lunch at the conference while listening to a Pixar presentation, then dinner at Roy’s on Mission Street. Can’t wait for that desert: Roy’s Melting Hot Chocolate Soufflé…DK
Didn’t know much about this until today: iTunes U
It’s only open to U.S. and Canadian non-profit universities right now, but I can see all sorts of ways this could be used at the high school level by an organization like HSRA. I’m going to hound the product manager again to see if we could be a test site for the K-12 segment. Here are examples from UC Berkeley, Duke and Stanford…DK
Charley Walters had lots of golf items in today’s column:
Read it before it’s gone…
Last weekend, we returned to course that I really love, but had avoided for a year due to slow play and the owner’s policy of letting fivesomes play on weekend mornings. The Ridges at Sand Creek is a beautiful Joel Goldstrand course that opened in 2000 just outside Jordan, Minnesota. I understand getting behind a slow group every now and then, but it happened several times in a row. After receiving no response from owner and general manager Mike Malone, we decided to go elsewhere for a year. This is a shame, as the course itself is wonderful (although the design does contribute to slow play).
Our return started off ominously: the starter said the 6:00 tee time was late and didn’t start until 6:30, so they were behind schedule (we had a 6:59 tee time). Why one group showing up late should be our problem escapes me, but things improved after we teed off. In fact, I complimented two of the rangers I talked to about how vastly improved the pace of weekend play had become. One ranger told me they now try to keep all weekend rounds under four hours. Hooray! Ridges is back on the approved list…
After winning four free 18-hole rounds through the Swing Through the St. Croix Valley promotion, we headed to the old course at New Richmond Golf Club last week. Part of the St. Croix Valley Golf Trail, New Richmond has an older, mature front nine that opened in 1923 and a newer back nine that opened in 1982. Willie Kidd did the original design, while Don Herfort was brought in for the expansion. There is also a nine-hole reversible links course located near the entrance to the old course that was built in 1998. We had a great time and the course was in good condition. Some of the holes on the front nine are really memorable and would fit in well on a Brainerd area course. We hit the Zantigo in town for lunch before driving home through the rain that seemed to stay just south of town all morning.
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