Golf course history - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Bob Feser: "In 1955 I was working at theme Denver Country Club in Colorado. Late that summer my dad, Leo Feser, along with my brother Dave came to Denver with a proposal. He informed me that he had an option to purchase the Farm in Medina and would like to build another golf course. At this point I digress to tell a little about my father Leo. As a young 1 child he was stricken with polio (in those A days referred to as infantile paralysis). He was unable to walk for about 3 years until Dr. Abbott took his case and through the E , rtr3 l rta1 use of braces and therapy was able to begin walking again. During this time, Albert Crosby of the Crosby Milling family Spurzem Dairy Barn now on Baker National Golf Course and who was the same age as Leo used built about 1890. A remnant of a past era that guards the to pick him up in his pony cart and take left size of the green on hole #1 of the lake course. him for rides. They became life-long friends. In the early 1920's Leo was in the apple orchard pruning and spraying business and had acquired considerable expertise of horticultural practices. Charles C. Bovey, an executive of Washburn Crosby Co. (from which WCCO got its call letters) and a founding member of Woodhill Country Club, offered Leo the job of Greenskeeper, a position he held for 30 years. Under Leo's care, the golf course became one of the Midwest's finest country club courses. Woodhill, designed by the famous golf course architect, Donald Ross, and constructed in the years of WWI, was in rather poor condition at the time Leo took over its care. Though Ross had laid out the course beautifully, it had few trees, many boulders protruding out of fairways, bad turf on the greens, and other problems. Among additional improvements Leo made on the course, he developed a new strain of bent grass called Woodhill Bent. Jack Nicklaus, who played the course in an exhibition round, said the greens were "The best he had ever played on". During those early days at Woodhill, Leo was courting Florence Ice, later my mother. Florence's father was Charles Ice who was the blacksmith in Wayzata and later in Excelsior. His father was Charles Ice Sr. who had fought under General Sherman's command during the Civil War. He was from Kentucky, and upon returning home after being badly wounded at the battle of Refsaca, Georgia, he found that he was very unpopular with his neighbors because they felt he had fought for the "wrong side". He was said to have stated "I'm going to get just as damn far from this place as I can" and he moved to Minnesota and settled on land which later became Dunwoody Farms and later still, Woodhill Country Club. As a young man, Leo was quite ambitious and decided to buy what was then one of the apple orchards he had earlier cared for, a parcel called Orono Orchards." Leo Feser's comments: "The first "owners" of this land were the king and queen of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella. The Indians didn't know about owning land: they just used it. Orono lies in that great tract of land between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains known historically as the Louisiana Purchase This land was used as a fort of political pawn by both France and Spain until Napoleon Bonaparte settled the business by selling it to the United States. President Jefferson bought what was to be Orono Public Golf Course for less than four cents and acre—a total of less than two dollars! Minnesota was still a territory in 1856 when Mr. Edward F. Walsh applied for a patent covering considerably more land than that used by the golf course The patent was granted to him in 1859 when the State of Minnesota was less than two years old It is interesting to note