Bemidji Town & Country Club – Master Plans

Bemidji Town & Country Club is a semi-private 18-hole golf course located on the shores of Lake Bemidji in northern Minnesota. The course was originally constructed in 1918 but over time, had become overgrown with large spruce trees that had 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. Herfort Norby was retained to prepare a long-range master plan to improve playability and reduce the cost of unnessary repairs and maintenance. The master plan emphasized the need to remove trees, improve irrigation and to restore the character which once made it unique.

Over the following two years, the Club removed nearly 300 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 into a smaller flat sand style which was more consistent with the original character of the course. The bunker renovation project included new greenside irrigation and reshaping of green surrounds to reinstate a more “classic” look on five holes that had been reconstructed in the 1990s in a more modern style. This is a beautiful example of “golden-age architecture with elevated green pads and deep ribbon-style bunkering.