Kimsal Named MGA Evans Scholar of The Year

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EDINA, Minn. (Oct. 29, 2024) – University of Minnesota Evans Scholars Chapter House President Karsten Kimsal was named the 2024 Minnesota Golf Association’s Fritz Corrigan Evans Scholar of the Year at the MGA’s 124th Annual Awards Dinner, Oct. 28 at Edina Country Club. Along with Kimsal, the MGA honored outstanding players, volunteers, and club representatives for their contributions to the amateur game of golf in Minnesota. They include: Mark Loosbrock, as the MGA Giles Kobilka Award winner, and Hastings Golf Club, as the MGA Member Club of the Year. 

The evening’s highlights also included recognition of Jake Birdwell, Dave Carothers, Linda Goodno, Olivia Herrick, Amelia Morton and Max Tylke as the MGA Players of the Year. (see this link to a press release dated Oct. 21, 2024).

MGA Fritz Corrigan Evans Scholar of the Year
This award is bestowed annually to an Evans Scholar from the University of Minnesota Evans Scholars Chapter House for outstanding achievement in academics, leadership and community service. 

Karsten Kimsal, 22, is a senior at the University of Minnesota majoring in Finance & Entrepreneurial Management, carrying a 3.4 cumulative GPA. Due to his love of golf, he caddied at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska for five years before establishing an outstanding record of leadership within the Evans Scholars Program. In 2023, Karsten served as vice president of finance for the chapter and was elected to serve a second term on the executive board as the Minnesota chapter’s president in 2024.

Karsten will graduate in December 2024 and has plans to launch his own business.

The Chick Evans Scholarship program is a four-year college scholarship for deserving caddies sponsored by the Western Golf Association in association with the MGA. There are currently a record 1,190 Evans Scholars attending 24 universities around the country.

In 1996, the MGA renamed the Evans Scholar of the Year award in honor of Fritz Corrigan, a long-time supporter of the Evans Scholarship program who helped establish the Evans Scholars Chapter House at the University of Minnesota. 

Giles Kobilka Award
The MGA Giles Kobilka Award was awarded to Mark Loosbrock. This service award was created to recognize individuals whose exceptional and meritorious contributions align with the mission of the MGA and enhance the amateur game of golf in Minnesota.

Loosbrock, 74, of Lismore, has been volunteering for the MGA for nearly three decades. He was elected to the MGA Board of Directors in 1997, and given his leadership ability and unstinting service, was quickly elevated as an officer as the Southwest Regional Vice President -- a position he holds to this day. Loosbrock played a key role in the formation of the MGA’s Ambassador Program, which ran from 2003 to 2016. He began serving as an MGA tournament volunteer in 2000 and remains active as a site captain and rules official. Loosbrock was appointed to the MGA Rules & Competitions Committee and served in that capacity from 2017 to 2020. Prior to his time with the MGA, he was a volunteer marshal and rules official at the high school level, and for the past 30-plus years, he has officiated at Worthington’s long-running Labor Day Classic. After a lifetime in the banking industry, Loosbrock recently retired as owner of the State Bank of Lismore, where he remains active in the community and his church.

The MGA award is named for Giles Kobilka, who passed away in 2020 after nearly 50 years of volunteer service to the MGA. Kobilka was highly regarded by volunteers and competitors alike not only for his personable nature, but also for his unwavering commitment to the volunteer ethos.

Member Club of the Year
Hastings Golf Club was named the 2024 MGA Member Club of the Year in recognition of the facility’s support of the MGA Associate Member program and willingness to host MGA championships and qualifiers.

The Hastings Golf Club has its origins in the Valley View Golf Club which was formed at the tail end of the Roaring Twenties on land once owned by the family of local farmer, Nick Conzemius. The golf club was formerly organized in 1929 and managed to stay solvent after the stock market crash of the same year in an era when many other golf courses and country clubs could not. In 1939, the club voted to change its name to Hastings Country Club, and for the next two decades the golf course operated on property just east of Highway 61. In 1959, after the current site was purchased using the proceeds from the sale of home lots, the club hired architect Paul Coates who developed a master plan featuring an initial 9 holes, which opened in 1960 followed by a second nine in 1966. After a new clubhouse was built in 2002, the private club weathered years of financial difficulties culminating in the golf club’s sale to local businesswoman Nicole Sindelar. Now operating as a semi-private golf facility, Hastings GC was named Business of the Year (2023) by the Hastings Area Chamber of Commerce, and a Golfers’ Choice Top 50 U.S. Public Golf Course (2024) by NBC GolfPass.

Hastings GC has hosted numerous MGA events and USGA qualifiers. They hosted the 2024 MGA Players’ and Women’s Match Play Championships, won by Joe Conzemius and Nicole Reineke, respectively. Additionally, they hosted the 2012 MGA Amateur Championship and the 2011 Minnesota Women’s State Amateur Championship, won by PGA Tour veteran Erik Van Rooyen and Celia Kuenster, respectively. They also hosted the 2023 Minnesota State Junior Girls' Championship, the 2022 MGA Women’s Senior Amateur Championship, the 2021 MGA Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship and the 2020 MGA Players’ Championship.

Currently, Hastings GC actively supports the MGA’s non-profit mission through its MGA Associate Member program (186 active members) using the GHIN service. In recognition of this service to the game, the club received a plaque and will be featured in the 2025 Directory issue of Minnesota Golfer, the official publication of the MGA. 

About Edina Country Club
Edina CC was designed by Tom Bendelow and opened in 1923, originally as the Thorpe Country Club. In 2010-11, the team of Tom Lehman and Chris Brands redesigned the course, installing new green complexes, bunkers, tees and fairway grasses but retaining essentially the same course layout. ECC has been an active supporter of amateur golf and the MGA since the facility first opened. In addition to hosting the MGA Amateur seven times since 1926, the club has hosted numerous MGA amateur competitions including four Mid-Amateur, three Senior Amateur, three Amateur Four-Ball, and the Players’ (state match play) and Mixed Amateur Team championships. ECC has also hosted the MGA-PGA Cup Matches, the MGA Senior Tour plus numerous USGA amateur and open qualifiers.

About the MGA
Established in 1901, with the formation by seven golf clubs to organize the state’s most prestigious and storied golf championship, the MGA Amateur Championship. The Minnesota Golf Association today is the governing body over amateur golf in the state, responsible for administering the Rules of Golf and committed to upholding and promoting the game of golf and its values for all golfers in Minnesota.
 
The MGA conducts 23 major amateur championships and 16 USGA qualifying events each year. Thanks to the support of its member clubs and associate members and the efforts of its volunteers and staff, the MGA provides a variety of services such as handicapping, course rating and measuring, an online golf news and information resource, www.mngolf.org, and an official publication, Minnesota Golfer magazine, which benefit all golfers throughout Minnesota.
 
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