Part of the reason I haven’t been posting much lately is the project I completed today. In anticipation of the new Los Angeles school, I decided some of our server equipment at work needed to be repositioned and reconfigured. It sounded like a good idea at the time (and I think will be long-term), but it took a lot of planning to pull off.

In a nutshell, I moved two servers from St. Paul to Seattle, pulled a large network storage device out of Seattle to be sent back to Minnesota, reconfigured the remaining St. Paul server to match what I need to do for the new Los Angeles server and upgraded memory across the board.

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Jim Lehman, the 2003 Minnesota State Mid-Amateur champ (and brother of Tom Lehman) will face Trent Brown of Scottsdale in the title match of the 104th Trans-Mississippi Championship at Minikahda Club in Minneapolis.

Lehman, a sports agent with SFX, beat former Gopher Phil Ebner of Edina 5&4 to move on to the title match, which will begin at 7:30am Saturday morning.

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FORE! Minnesota, on Saturday, July 14, 2007 (9 am on KSTC-45):

• Course Tour: Dacotah Ridge (Morton, MN)
• Great Moments in MN Golf: 1916 (US Open at Minikahda)
• Stories of Golf: James McLean (“Where Are They Now?”)
• Tad Reeve’s Dream 18: TPC Twin Cities #17
• Pro Strategies: David Kirkbride (Bluff Creek GC)

The cover story in the June/July 2007 issue of Minnesota Golfer magazine is titled 10 Pros to Know.

The list is based on the last 10 Teachers of the Year, as selected by the Minnesota Section of the PGA. The article states they will be covering LPGA teachers in a later issue.

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This week is the 104th Trans-Mississippi Championship, being held at the Minikahda Club in Minneapolis.

Today is the second day of stroke play qualifying in the Championship Division, which will result in a field of 64 for match play, which begins tomorrow and runs through Saturday. There is also a Senior Division, which will have a bracket of 32 players.

This historic tournament is open to all amateur male golfers who are individual members of Trans-Mississippi Golf Association (TMGA) member golf clubs and have established a USGA handicap index of 5.4 or less.

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The 11th Annual Edinburgh USA Pro-Am was held last Friday at Edinburgh USA in Brooklyn Park. Proceeds from the 2007 tournament will be donated to the Community Emergency Assistance Program (CEAP).

Tournament host Don Berry and his team won the team competition. Tapemark Charity Pro-Am President Phil Callen and I played with Edinburgh USA Master PGA Professional and 2004 Minnesota Section PGA Teacher of the Year Craig Waryan.

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Fourth of July at Oak Marsh Golf Course in Oakdale was highlighted by U.S. flags on the greens and beautiful weather.

The Matt Eccles-designed course opened in August 1996, when the whole area looked a lot different. Development in Oakdale and Woodbury has really wrapped around the course. Oak Marsh is also a part of the development trend, with the clubhouse expansion we mentioned earlier this year nearing completion.

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After dining at the lovely Ristorante Luci, we went to see The Police concert at the Xcel Energy Center this week. Couldn’t justify the $225 tickets, but the $50 seats we had weren’t bad.

I had attended the last Twin Cities show of the band–the Synchronicity Tour at the Met Center in 1983. It was the first big concert I got to attend by myself and I remember being blown away by the energy and power of the performers and the great songs.

After reading some of the reviews of the shows from this tour, it sounded like the years had treated the band well and that they were playing with a lot of energy and passion (not just for a big payday). Unfortunately, that wasn’t the show we got to see on Tuesday night.

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The second course of our Grand Rapids golf trip was Eagle Ridge Golf Course in Coleraine. Garrett Gill of River Falls designed this course, which opened for play in 1996. We played the 6,254-yard white tees, which have a rating of 69.7 and a slope of 128.

This course had many dramatic holes with elevation changes, wetland areas, red-tinted sand in the bunkers and scenic views of Trout Lake. The course conditioning was good and the greens rolled faster than at Sugarbrooke.

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FORE! Minnesota, on Saturday, July 7, 2007 (9 am on KSTC-45):

• Course Tour: Bluff Creek (Chanhassen, MN)
• Great Moments in MN Golf: 2002 (University of Minnesota National Champions)
• Stories of Golf: Women in GOLF (“Golfers Only Lovely Females”)
• Tad Reeve’s Dream 18: Bunker Hills #13
• Stories of Golf Revisited: Wounded Warriors (TPC Twin Cities)

KSTP Channel 5 is running an online poll to pick the toughest water hole in the Twin Cities.

Hurry–voting ends Friday, July 6.

They will count down the top 10 starting July 11 on Eyewitness News.

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Yesterday we ventured north from the Twin Cities to the Grand Rapids area for a day of golf. First stop was Sugarbrooke Golf Course, located at Ruttger’s Sugar Lake Lodge resort.

Sugarbrooke is a 6,534 yard, par 71 golf course designed by Joel Goldstrand that opened in 1995. Many of the holes reminded me of Hidden Greens near Hastings–lots and lots of trees.

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Last week I finally stopped at Bulrush Golf Club in Rush City. I’ve driven by there a million times on the way to the North Shore and it has never seemed very busy, so I was curious to check it out.

The 6,929-yard course was designed by George Shortridge and Mike Morley and originally opened in 2003 as Brookside Golf Course. It closed and was sold to Doug Abrahamson and John Majewski, who reopened it as Bulrush in April 2006.

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I wanted to wait until iPhone 2.0, but I had one budgeted for work and I just couldn’t resist after reading the initial waves of positive reviews.

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