Fought’s design perfectly complements the existing South Course, featuring strategic challenges and unique renditions of “template” holes
INDEPENDENCE, Minn. – With this month’s official opening of its North Course, Windsong Farm becomes the first private club in Minnesota to offer two outstanding and very different 18-hole golf experiences.
Along with the existing South Course, club members now enjoy an amazing variety of golf-architecture experiences, a mix of new and old design concepts that build on the game’s traditions of strategic design while providing enjoyment to golfers of all skill levels.
Both courses were designed by noted architect and former PGA TOUR player John Fought, whose other original work includes the Championship Course at Sand Hollow Resort—cited by Golf Digest as the best course in Utah—and both courses at The Gallery in Arizona, former venue for the TOUR’s Tucson Open. Fought has also done significant renovation work at courses around the country. Fought co-designed the South Course in 2002 with Minnesota native and PGA TOUR Champions player Tom Lehman.
Windsong Farm owner David Meyer asked Fought to make the North Course as good, fun, but different from the South Course, which extends to more than 7,500 yards and features large greens with subtle undulations and collection areas inspired by the work of Donald Ross.
The new North Course is on a smaller piece of property—about 125 acres vs. 220 for the South—and pays homage to several different Golden Age architects, notably Seth Raynor. It’s a par 70 that can be stretched to not quite 6,500 yards but offers constant strategic challenge along with Fought’s take on several classic “template” hole designs, including an Eden green (2), Biarritz green (4), a Dell hole (8), Redan green (17), and a Cape (18). Holes 13 and 16 share a boomerang-shaped double green, most of the bunkers are rectangular with grass faces, and the fairways are broad and open with a strip of maintained rough that leads into thin and wispy fescue.
“You wouldn’t know the same person designed both of these courses,” Fought says. “The North looks like a golf course that came from the early 1900’s. It’s on a very small piece of land and I wanted to prove to people that length isn’t the only way to add drama to a golf course.”
With spectacular views of Fox Lake and surrounding horse pastures, the North Course includes six par-three and 4 par-five holes. There is no repetition of holes by par until number 14, which is the first of three consecutive par-fours. It is, says Fought, the most diverse course he’s ever built. And in another nod to courses from golf’s illustrious past, Fought’s North Course allows golfers to step off the green and onto the next tee, eliminating long walks between holes.
“This course is going to force you to think,” Fought says. “You can’t just get up and hammer it. You’ll have to think, ‘Do I want to hit driver here?’ Some of the greens are tiny, and others are huge. The Biarritz green at number 4 is 17,000 square feet, where a normal green is 6,000. And I think golfers will use every club on the par-threes.”
“We configured it to create the most diversity you can get on a golf course.”
In addition to a major bunker renovation and course improvement project in 2015, Fought recently updated the club’s practice area, which features East and West teeing decks, synthetic teeing areas, a teaching building, five practice putting greens, and a short game area built to the same USGA specifications as the golf courses.
For additional information about Windsong Farm Golf Club, access the website at www.wsfarm.com.