Hazeltine celebrates 50th anniversary

When Jim Leone and his wife were looking for a golf club to join more than two decades ago, they knew exactly what they weren’t looking for.

“What we didn’t want was a place where our kids sat around a pool sipping ginger ale and talking about whose dad had the biggest Mercedes,” he said. “We wanted it to be about the golf.”

The Leones chose Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska and haven’t looked back. They’ve been members for 26 years and have raised five kids on Hazeltine’s brand of golf. Leone is now serving as co-chair of the 50th anniversary celebration.

Hazeltine will celebrate its 50th anniversary this weekend. Friday kicks off a two-day golf tournament. That evening, the club will host a legacy event featuring 1970 U.S. Open champion Tony Jacklin and Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton. On Saturday night, Kenny Loggins will perform a live concert during the 50th Anniversary Celebration.

“It’s gonna be a blast,” said Leone. “I think there’s so much pride for folks.”

The goal of the weekend will be to honor the club’s 50 years. “We’ll be looking at our history, our mission, our championships and our membership,” said Leone.

According to “Hazeltine National: 50 Years” by Rick Shefchik, a new book being published for the club’s membership, Hazeltine was the brain child of Totton Peavey Heffelfinger.

As president of the United States Golf Association (USGA), Heffelfinger had helped to bring a number of major golf events to Minnesota.

However, as the game of golf evolved, Heffelfinger understood that the state would need a new golf course to attract championship games like the U.S. Open.

According to Shefchik, Heffelfinger hired golf course architect Robert Bruce Harris to survey the outlying Twin Cities by plane. On that mission, Harris found 725 acres of land along Chaska’s Lake Hazeltine.

Famed golf course architect Robert Trent Jones toured the site in 1959, while in town for the PGA Championship at the Minneapolis Golf Club. He would later sign on with Heffelfinger as an investor and the designer of the future 18-hole course.

Two investment firms were formed to buy up the 725 acres and an adjoining 670 acres for a total of $1.15 million. The nearly 1,400 acres would be developed for golf, residential and commercial interests.

Hazeltine National Golf Club was completed in the fall of 1962. Shefchik noted that the name “reflected both the club’s expectation that it would be a national crossroads for the game’s top players, and its most charming local feature, Hazeltine Lake.”

“The course was defined by big, undulating greens, long tees, multiple bunkers and many dogleg fairways,” wrote Shefchik.

Don Waryan was hired as Hazeltine’s first head golf professional. “Because the clubhouse was not finished, Waryan’s first pro shop — containing a hot dog machine, some potato chips and a few sleeves of balls — was a portable shack located behind the 6th green,” wrote Shefchik.

The clubhouse itself was designed by Herb Bloomberg, of Chanhassen Dinner Theatres fame.

Championships

In early 1964, it was announced that Hazeltine would host the 1966 U.S. Women’s Open. It would be the course’s first test as a championship venue.

Fifteen thousand people attended the event and watched as a 29-year-old former elementary school teacher from Indiana named Sandra Spuzich won by just one shot.

Hazeltine netted $20,000 off the event, but more importantly, the fledgling course got its name circulating. By the end of the year, the club was up to 237 members.

More good news would soon follow as the USGA declared that Hazletine would play host to the 1970 U.S. Open. It would be the first time the U.S. Open had been played in Minnesota in 40 years.

Jacklin, who took the 1969 British Open, came out on top at the U.S. Open, but the course proved difficult for many of the pros, leading to plenty of criticism for Hazeltine — criticism that would stick with the club, according to Shefchik’s book.

Nonetheless, Hazeltine netted more than $330,000 from the event. Optimism for the club’s future was high, but it would seven years before Hazeltine would have a chance to host another championship event.

Changes

In 1972, to raise money for maintenance costs and retire the club’s nearly $500,000 mortgage, ownership of Hazeltine was offered to its 250 members at an individual share price of $4,500.

That May, a par-30 golf course, designed by Robert Trent Jones, opened. (The Par 30 was donated to the city of Chaska in 1989.)

Hazeltine underwent a variety of changes after the 1970 Open in the hopes of luring a championship back. In 1977, the club successfully hosted the Women’s Open where Hollis Stacy took the top prize.

But more course changes were in order to keep Hazeltine on the championship circuit. By 1980, the USGA was satisfied to the point where Hazeltine was awarded the 1983 U.S. Senior Open. Billy Casper would go on to win at that event.

Highs and lows

In 1985, Hazeltine was dealt a major blow when the greens were taken over by blight. The club was forced to rip up, fumigate and replace the sod, putting the course out of commission until June 1986, Shefchik writes.

The blight was tempered by news that Hazeltine would get a chance at redemption when it hosted the 1991 U.S. Open.

The 1991 Open did provide the club with some redemption. Though heavy rain in the weeks prior to the tournament threatened to sog the course, helicopters were enlisted to help dry things out. By the time the Open was underway, the course was dry and the pros were raving over it, Shefchik notes.

It seemed as though it would be a smooth championship, until a storm struck on the first day of competition. Play was halted and some spectators sought refuge under the trees. Lightning struck, sending five to the hospital. One golf fan, Billy Fadell, died.

Payne Stewart would go on to win the Open in a rare Monday playoff, becoming one of the only big names to take a championship at Hazeltine.

The club would take in a record $3.1 million from the event.

PGA

With the success of the 1991 Open, at last the PGA started to show serious interest in Hazeltine. In 1994, Hazeltine was awarded the 2002 PGA Championship. The club would later add the 2009 PGA Championship and the 2016 Ryder Cup to its calendar.

Though Tiger Woods was favored to win the 2002 PGA Championship, Hazeltine would again foil a big name, this time in favor of Rich Beem. Seven years later, Woods would lose out to Y.E. Yang.

Immediately following the PGA Championship, Hazeltine began to get ready for the future.

The clubhouse was razed to make way for a new 50,000-square-foot facility that would usher in a more modern feel at the club. The course was also shut down for a year to revamp the greens — all in anticipation of the 2016 Ryder Cup and future championships to come.

37 years

In his 37 seasons with Hazeltine, golf professional Mike Schultz has seen many of the changes the club has gone through in its storied history. He was hired in 1976.

“It was my chance to move up,” he said.

It was also his chance to help grow the club to its full membership and attract the championship-caliber events that are the cornerstone of Hazeltine’s mission.

Though he is set to retire at the end of the year and pass the reins along to just the third golf pro in the club’s history, Schultz was recently honored as the PGA’s Golf Professional of the Year.

“I’m humbled, really,” he said. “Honored.”

Schultz knows it won’t be easy to leave Hazeltine.

“I love the place, the golf club, the course, but really, it’s the people,” he said.

Reported by:  Chanhassen Villager