Star Tribune
As Minnesota weather warms, golf courses welcome December players
Golfers and course operators are getting an early holiday gift.
The forecast for Thursday, the first day of Hanukkah and slightly more than two weeks from Christmas, calls for 50 degrees and sunny skies. Golf courses from Annandale to Hastings and beyond opened their tee sheets for Thursday, Friday and perhaps into the weekend — and sold out in hours.
Oak Marsh in Oakdale booked times on Monday for Thursday and days after. So did other courses that are mostly privately owned, public daily-fee operations that put their faith in meteorologists and the sun and wind’s melting power.
“I wish I had two more 18-hole courses, I would have filled them all,” said Steve Whillock, Oak Marsh’s GM/director of golf. “I turned them away right and left all day on Tuesday, and everybody who calls today.”
Oak Marsh filled its tee sheet with 100 golfers each day — all walking, no motorized carts — then said sorry to more golfers who had hoped to get out for some rare December play. It will send groups off two tees from 11 a.m. to 12:40 p.m. That allows time in the morning Thursday for any remaining snow on greens to melt and frost to thaw. It also allows time for golfers with later tee times to finish before dark.
“People who play this time of year are avid golfers,” Whillock said. “These are not beginners playing in the winter. They move fast.”
Pioneer Creek in Independence closed in late October, reopened before Thanksgiving when the weather improved and then closed again until this week’s forecasts. It organized “shotgun” starts Wednesday through Friday in which golfers start on all 18 holes to ensure everyone finishes on time. It sold out fast for Thursday and Friday.
One golfer wore shorts Wednesday on a 45-degree day.
“Believe it or not,” said Pioneer Creek general manager Marcia Kreklow, “people get very excited to be playing golf in 50 degrees, in Minnesota, in December.”
The Ponds Golf Course, a 27-hole layout in St. Francis, sold out with 150 golfers set to play Thursday if the snow melts and for sure Friday. It’ll stay open as long as the weather cooperates, until golfers retreat to indoor simulators for the winter.
One of those avid Minnesota golfers, Paul Howard from Eden Prairie, has an 11:30 a.m. shotgun start for himself and a buddy Thursday at Kilkarney Hills in River Falls, Wis.
Howard is traveling that far, about 50 miles, because that’s where he could get a tee time. He said he has played in December the last three years and once played in January some 20 years ago. Thursday’s 50-degree forecast is almost balmy for a golfer who has played in cold wearing winter gloves and all layered up.
“The good thing is, you don’t have to worry about water hazards,” he said. “They’re frozen.”
Whillock said Oak Marsh “really doesn’t ever close” until the snow accumulates. There just are some days you can play and some you can’t.
Every day open is worth it financially.
“We need every penny we can get with the high cost of running a business,” said Whillock, who has worked at Oak Marsh for all of its 27 years. “My motto is if there’s no snow on the ground, we’re going to go. And if people pay us, we’re definitely going to go. We’re doing our best to make a fair profit. It’s definitely needed. In this business, you make hay in the summer and hold on tight in the winter.”
Oak Marsh’s clubhouse caters events, and its grill is open in winter when the course isn’t.
“It’s good promotion to get our name out there,” Whillock said. “A lot of people might come by who haven’t been here before. It’s good marketing. Everyone that leaves usually says, ‘Thank you for being open. This is so cool.’ People who play golf in December are all excited, but we can only fit so many on.”
Amid the cacophony and chaos of the pregame preparation before a recent Minnetonka High School football game, an exceptional group of six girls is gathered together among the school’s deep and talented cheerleading and dance teams.
The cheerleaders, a national championship-winning program of 40 girls, dot the track around the football field. As the clock ticks down to kickoff and their night of choreographed routines begins, the six girls, proudly wearing Minnetonka blue T-shirts emblazoned with “Skippers Nation” and shaking shiny pom-poms, swirl around the track, bristling with excited energy.
Their circumstances are no different from any of the other cheerleaders with one notable exception: The girls on this team have special needs.
They’re members of the Minnetonka Sparklers, a squad of cheerleaders made up solely of girls with special needs.
A football game at Minnetonka High School is an elaborate production. The Skippers’ recent homecoming victory over Shakopee brought an announced crowd of 8,145. And that is just paying attendees; it doesn’t include school staffers, coaches, dance team, marching band, concession workers, media members and others going about their business attached to the game.
The Sparklers program, now in its 12th season, was the brainchild of Marcy Adams, a former Minnetonka cheerleader who initiated the program in her senior year of high school. Adams has been coach of the team since its inception, staying on through her tenure as a cheerleader at the University of Minnesota.
She started the program after experiencing the Unified Sports program at Minnetonka. The unified sports movement at high schools brings together student-athletes with cognitive or physical disabilities and athletes with no disabilities to foster relationships, understanding and compassion through athletics. Many Minnesota schools offer unified sports.
“I grew up in a household that valued students with special needs and valued inclusion,” Adams said. “I saw a need to give to those students. At Minnetonka, we have a strong Unified program, and this was a great opportunity to build relationships and offer mentorship opportunities.”
Elite runners are in a league of their own.
To get a sense of how far ahead elite runners are compared to the rest of us, the Minnesota Star Tribune took a look at how their times compare to the average marathon participant.
The 2022 Twin Cities Marathon men’s winner was Japanese competitor Yuya Yoshida, who ran the marathon in a time of 2 hours, 11 minutes and 28 seconds, for an average speed of 11.96 mph. He averaged 5 minutes and 2 seconds per mile.
That’s more than twice the speed of the average competitor across both the men’s and women’s categories, of 5.89 mph, according to race results site Mtec. The average participant finished in 4 hours, 26 minutes and 56 seconds. That comes out to an average time of 10 minutes and 11 seconds per mile.
And taking it to the most extreme, the fastest-ever marathon runner, Kelvin Kiptum of Kenya, finished the 2023 Chicago Marathon in 2 hours and 35 seconds, for an average pace of about 13 mph. Kiptum averaged 4 minutes and 36 seconds per mile.
Here is a graphic showing these differences in average marathon speed.
The school said in its lawsuit that both Hugo and May Township consider the land rural residential zoning, and that the codes identify a school as a conditional use. Hugo officials have generally supported the LCA plan, granting a building permit in 2022 that allowed LCA to invest $2.1 million into the former Withrow school for renovations.
The school said in its lawsuit that the existing septic system is failing and needs to be replaced, regardless of expansion plans.
The school said it notified neighbors of the property in 2022 and again in 2023 about its land purchase. About 50 residents in total attended those meetings, and just two expressed concerns over the issues of traffic and lights, according to the suit. The school met with the May Township board in May of 2023, and minutes from that meeting show that the board had no concerns beyond lighting at the time, according to the suit. The board asked if the school could use “down lighting” for its athletic fields and the school said it would.
In June, Hugo City Council approved a conditional use permit for the school, but the May Township board voted to extend the decision deadline to early August.
The suit says it was at a subsequent meeting in July that May Town Board Chairman John Pazlar objected to the plan for the first time, saying “the main concern, based on public comment, is to keep Town of May rural.”
The school said its plans for the May Township portion of its property had been submitted eight months prior to the July meeting, and that its plans met requirements of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
