Why?

Waste of valuable land that could be used for more park space and other amenities other people can use rather than an obscure sport barely anyone cares about.

Minnesota has 577,700 golfers. They played 7.96 million rounds in 2023, Plus, another 870,000 rounds played were by visitors. Golf brings in $3B+ in economic impact and 35k jobs to MN. Hardly an obscure sport. mngolf.org/news/golf_me....

"The MGA's mission is to uphold and promote the game of golf..." Talking their own book. This is one poorly designed course in the middle of the city. It wouldn't be missed. There are plenty of courses in the burbs and cabin country for rich boring people to waste their money on.

That's like saying let's put mountain bike trails in rural areas for boring outodorsy to waste money on. But, no, we don't do that. They are in urban and suburban tracks. Braemar in Edina opened a banger last year. Consider broadening your accpetance of hobbies beyond your own interests.

I don't see it as an issue around hobbies. I don't bike either and yet think bike trails of all sorts are better land use than golf courses. I don't know the data but I'd venture to guess golf is majority upper income while biking would be more middle. It's about equitable access to the public realm

By the way, I appeciate the conversation. Good topic.

Never argued about golf courses on the Internet before? Lol I am sure I am probably more even keeled about it than many other urbanism nerds.

But as Braemar shows, you can have both. It's not an either or world. In fact Braemar is a wonderful exmaple of mixed use spaces. Ice rinks, golf, baseball, soccer, football, mountain biking, etc. Let;s create civic space that give everyone and opportuntiy to be active and build community.

Sure, go for it in the suburbs, but this specific case of Hiawatha which needs to be re-built without much available open space for mixed uses, I'd say spend the money elsewhere and just turn it into more parkland. I spot 4 other courses in MPLS/SP so I don't think it would be a huge loss.