Bemidji Town & Country Club – Master Plan & Renovation

Bemidji Town & Country Club is a semi-private 18-hole golf course located on the north shore of Lake Bemidji in northern Minnesota. The course was originally constructed in 1918 but the original architect is unknown. Over time, the course had become overgrown with large spruce trees that shaded fairways and narrowed playing corridors. In addition, the course had lost much of its original golden-age character and had become increasingly difficult and expensive to maintain. Don Herfort and Kevin Norby were retained to prepare a long-range master plan to improve playability and reduce the cost of unnecessary repairs and maintenance. The master plan emphasized the need to remove trees, improve irrigation and to restore the golden-age character which once made it unique.

Over the following two years, the Club removed nearly 600 mature trees to improve turf quality and to restore the original playing corridors. In addition, we reduced on-going maintenance and total bunker square footage by nearly 40 percent by reconstructing the existing bunkers with a smaller footprint and flat sand style more consistent with the original character of the course. The renovation included new greenside irrigation and the reshaping of green surrounds to reinstate a more “classic” look on five holes that had been reconstructed in the 1990s with a more modern style. This is a beautiful example of “golden-age architecture with elevated green pads and deep ribbon-style bunkering.