Major championship golf in Minnesota would have gone the way of the stymie were it not for Totton P. Heffelfinger.
Heffelfinger was the visionary behind Hazeltine National Golf Club, founded in 1962 for the express purpose of bringing the U.S. Open back to Minnesota for the first time since Bobby Jones won that title at Interlachen Country Club in 1930.
Heffelfinger, a longtime Minikahda Club member and president of the United States Golf Association (USGA) in 1952-53, realized that the state no longer had a course tough enough to challenge the long-hitting new breed of top golfers, nor a club with enough space to handle the infrastructure demands of modern crowds and television coverage.
A new course was needed, and Heffelfinger—strong-willed, tirelessly forward-thinking and deeply connected, both socially and politically—was determined to make it happen.