Joe Bissen

Fore! Gone Joe Bissen

A golf course on a swamp? On a prison grounds? Next to a sewage disposal plant? Yes, yes and yes -- and joined by courses built by millionaires, played by champions and designed by experts. From the crazy to the classy, "Fore! Gone. Minnesota's Lost Golf Courses, 1897-1999" revives more than 80 abandoned layouts, many of them long-forgotten. Ever heard of Roadside Golf Club?

Lost courses in these cities are covered at some length:

Austin

Bayport

Bemidji

Brooklyn Park

Brownton

Chanhassen

Chippewa National Forest

Chisago City

Chisholm

Collegeville

Columbia Heights

Coon Rapids

Deephaven

Duluth

Faribault

Gem Lake

Hermantown

Hugo

Jackson

Lakeville

Mankato

Mendota Heights

Minneapolis

Mound

North St. Paul

Plymouth

Richfield

St. Charles

St. Cloud

St. Louis Park

St. Paul

Sleepy Eye

Spicer

Spring Grove

Stillwater

Tracy

Wabasha

Windom

Winona

Chapter 1 opens this way:

They paved paradise in Richfield, Minnesota. Man, did they ever.

Emphasis on "paved," not so much "paradise."

Rich Acres Golf Course never was a threat to win any course-design awards, unless there is some kind of distinction for Top Fifty Fairly Flat Courses You Can Play. But the old Richfield municipal course was sporty, it was easily accessible at Cedar Avenue between I-494 and Minnesota 62 (the Crosstown Highway), it was immensely popular, and before the cement mixers steamed in and turned it into a gigantic airport runway, it had a certain charm to those who frequented it.