1,904,497
Rounds of golf recorded in the state last year by the Minnesota Golf Association, which tallies both 9- and 18-hole games posted by its member players. Add in rounds by nonmembers, first-timers, and those too embarrassed to report their outings, and the total is likely to top the 2 mil mark. That’s a lot of swinging for a place known for its Scandinavian reserve.
27
Percentage of Minnesota households with at least one golfer, according to a 2005 survey conducted by the National Golf Foundation. That was the highest among the 50 states.
511
Number of golf courses in Minnesota, give or take an executive nine-holer. And nine sites are currently under construction.
$99
Weekend green fee for 18 holes at Rush Creek Golf Club in Maple Grove, the most expensive public course in the state. Cost to play 18 holes at Pebble Beach Golf Links in Pebble Beach, California, arguably the prettiest public course in the country: $475. Want a cart? That’ll be extra.
665
yards. Longest hole at a Minnesota golf course: the par-5 No. 18 at Eagle’s Landing Golf Club in Fort Ripley. Another distant challenge, at 618 yards: the par-6 No. 6 at Pine Beach East, at Madden’s on Gull Lake in Brainerd.
150,000
Number of golf groupies expected to line the links when the 2008 U.S. Women’s Open comes to Interlachen Country Club in Edina next summer, from June 23 to 29. Tickets go on sale this month—June 11, to be exact. Some 2,600 volunteers are being recruited to help corral the crowd and provide other services.
$20,000,000
Expected impact of the elite championship on the local economy. That’s about $119,000 an hour over the course of the seven-day tourney—not a bad rate, even for Edina.
In high school phy-ed, contributing editor Sandra Hoyt was forced to take a penalty stroke for driving her ball into an enormous water hazard: Lake Michigan.
Things To Do Before…You Program Your iPhone
Photo Courtesy Apple
Photo Courtesy Apple
CLOCK
Mon.—Fri. from 4:30 to 6:30 it’s heures joyeuses, a.k.a. happy hour, at Vincent in Minneapolis. Chef Francoual’s pièce de résistance, the titular Vincent Burger—stuffed with braised short ribs and smoked Gouda—is just six francs, er, bucks.
MAP
Explore the arts, dining, shops, and historic warehouse lofts of Minneapolis’s oldest “new” neighborhood, the North Loop. www.northloop.org
WEATHER
Hope for sun on Grand Old Day in St. Paul’s on June 3. Look for D’Amico and Sons jazz-and-wine area and new artists’ block, with work from Grand Hand Gallery, at the Midwest’s largest one-day party.
ICAL
Forty of your favorite local rock, hip-hop, dance, and theater groups congregate June 9 on Hennepin Avenue in downtown Minneapolis for a block party to kick off the summer-long Mosaic arts festival.
NOTES
The Mill City Museum’s new film, Minneapolis in 19 Minutes Flat, is a blast. Written by and starring local playwright Kevin Kling, it dramatizes a massive 1878 flour-dust explosion and other historical highlights. www.millcitymuseum.org
A Luscious Laura Ingalls
Our own prairie princess is sporting a new look that publisher HarperCollins hopes will appeal to those who found the classic editions “dusty and old-fashioned.” Perhaps targeting today’s readers of CosmoGirl!, the Little House books now feature vivid photographs of a sultry young woman who appears to be wearing colored contact lenses. What’s next: Betsy, Tacy, and Tib in Juicy Couture?
—CAROL RATELLE LEACH
Smoked Out
Brag about your job, your car, and your “love for the ladiez” all you want on MySpace.com, but maybe don’t post pictures of your pot plants. Moua Yang, a teen from Sheboygan, Wisconsin, found that out when police noticed his photos of marijuana plants (under the caption “My Mary Jane thats growin in my closet right now”) and tracked him down. Now he can post pics of his cell.
—Tim Gihring
