Schneid Remarks

As I was typing away early Friday afternoon a gentleman I had never seen before came in the office in Waterville.

I walked out of my office into the front area and asked him if I could help him with something. He introduced himself as Joe Bissen and he was looking for information about the former golf course in Waterville.

I knew there was a golf course just west of town, but I never had a chance to swing any clubs on it. Ironically, this stranger and I had a lot in common.

He was a copy editor at the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

He is a native of Caledonia, where my grandparents, aunt, uncle, and nieces and nephews live. I attended first grade in Caledonia and their family farm was near a golf course.

He also knew of Whitewater State Park, where I grew up next to as a child. When Bissen told me he had written a book about lost golf courses I immediately asked him if he knew of Whitewater State Park.

Quite an interesting afternoon conversation about newspapers and our former hometowns ensued.

Bissen said the cover of the book he wrote in 2014 was a photo from Whitewater State Park, where I spent much of my youth.

In the mid-1970s the golf course, which was located within the Whitewater State Park, flooded for the final time and never returned to its orginal state.

Thus, this is where Bissen comes back into the story.

The book he penned, "Fore!Gone. Minnesota's Lost Golf Courses, featured approxmately 50 golf courses throughout the state which are no longer in commssion.

One of those featured was that of Whitewater Valley Golf Course, which was two miles from the home I grew up in.

It was interesting reading about the golf course, which eventually succumbed to flooding in 1978, when I was in sixth grade. I remember the night like it was yesterday. I hated the storm alert on the television and this was one of those nights the alert went off more than once. I was a scared little 11-12 year old who only knew it was raining hard and the wind was blowing. Little did I know it would be the end of an iconic part of my life.

My family would spend many weekends and summer days rummaging through the Whitewater River, which ran through much of the course. We would intertube for miles down thw river through the park all the way to the town of Elba. We would look for lost golf balls and we found many. We had a small business, reselling these balls to interested and not so proficient golfers.

For a youngster, trapping gophers and retrieving water-logged golf balls gave me enough cash to get ice cream every couple days. It is always interesting to look back at your past and recollect on things which you probably never would give a second thought about.

Bissen's book brings me back 40+ years to a place I fondly visited hundreds of times. The rest of the book features golf courses from locations throughout Minnesota. It is a very interestng book.

It was fun finding out where there were courses and what has happened to those areas since the demise of the course.

I brought in Jack Webster, to see if he could recall anything about Bill Sautbine's golf course.

We made a couple of calls, but are still looking for more information on what they used to call "Short Tee?" If anyone has any information about the golf course or has pictures, please contact me or e-mail them to me at lrlife@frontiernet.net I will forward all information to Bissen so he can continue on his quest of uncovering the courses which once were.

A normal Friday afternoon turned into a history lesson and a memorable trip back through the years.