Deacon's Lodge and Hazeltines National Golf Club, U.S.A.

  
 

Deacon's Lodge - Minnesota, U.S.A.

Deacon's Lodge, which opened in September 1998, is the most recent golfing addition to Grand View Lodge in the Brainerd Lakes District of Minnesota. Designed by Arnold Palmer, the course is named after his father Deacon Palmer, the pro and superintendent at Latrobe Country Club in western Pennsylvania. Carved out of 499 acres of pristine Norway pine and birch, the course is hugged by three wilderness lakes, and the waste bunkers and chipping areas are engulfed by thick wetlands. The natural waste bunkers were created by peeling off the five-inch layer of topsoil to expose the 170-foot-deep sand base below. There are five sets of tees-Winnie, Lodge, Deacon, King, and Palmer. Brainerd is where the Paul Bunyan Trail begins its 100-mile route north to Bemidji.

Hazeltine National Golf Club - Minnesota, U.S.A.

Hazeltine National Golf Club outside Minneapolis had a rocky start as a championship course, but has now earned a reputation as a fair an4 dramatic test of the game's best players. Opened in 1961, Hazeltine was a brawny creation of Robert Trent Jones featuring many doglegs. Hazeltine was heavily criticized by the pros at the 1970 U.S. Open won by Tony Jacklin, and it was unclear whether the course would again be selected to stage the Open. Jones made substantial changes, including new 16th and 17th holes, and then Rees Jones, Trent's younger son, was brought in to further polish the design before the 1991 Open. The result was a pronounced success. Payne Stewart tied with Scott Simpson in regulation, and came back from two strokes behind with three holes to play to win the 18-hole playoff Rich Beem was the enthralling and ebullient winner of the 2002 PGA Championship at Hazeltine, overcoming birdies on the last four holes by Tiger Woods to earn a one-stroke victory. He clinched the title on Hazeltine's marquee 16th hole, which has a fairway shoehorned between a creek down the left and Lake Hazeltine to the right, by rolling in a 35-foot birdie putt.