Few private clubs in the American Midwest carry as much weight in golf history as Minikahda. Founded in 1898, it stands among the oldest country clubs in the Twin Cities and earned its place in the national conversation when it hosted the 1916 U.S. Open — the last held before World War I interrupted the championship. That tournament was won by Chick Evans, who completed the remarkable double of winning both the U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur in the same year, a feat that wouldn't be matched for decades.
The course occupies a compact, residential stretch of southwest Minneapolis near Lake Calhoun — now officially Bde Maka Ska — where the flat prairie gives way to subtle glacial contours. The layout rewards local knowledge, with a routing that has evolved over more than a century while retaining its early 20th-century bones and a genuine sense of urban intimacy rare in championship-caliber golf.
Minikahda remains an intensely private, member-driven club, the kind of place where tradition and understatement go hand in hand. Its par of 73 is a small reminder that classic courses were never slaves to convention.
