Still Playing for the Love of It: Don Cherrey and the Minnesota Senior Tour

Don Cherrey grew up in a small town called Beausejour in Manitoba, Canada, where the golf course sat a mile and a half outside of town. He was 13. Most days, he and his best friend would ride their bikes out, pull carts trailing behind them, and play 54 holes around the 9-hole sand green layout before heading home for dinner.

That pull toward the game never left. Today, Don plays five or six times a week and competes on the Minnesota Golf Association's Senior Tour twice a month (when in season).

He still shows up to the course the same way he always has. With purpose.

More Than Just Beating the Other Guy

"I've always been fairly competitive, but it's more about the personal challenge. Trying to tame your emotions and control your frustrations, and just trying to do better. You always think you can do better at golf, and the hope never dies that you'll find the magic," Don says.

Golf took a back seat to work and family through his adult years.

"I used to sit in my office all day and go, 'Boy, it'd be nice to go out and play some golf.' Family and work get in the way and you just don't. Then I retired, and I had the time to do it."

Don retired in 2016. Since then, he’s evolved his game from power to consistency. His nickname at the Medina Golf and Country Club is "Carve," a nod to the reliable fade he has grooved over the years.

"As you get older, you learn that's not the way you're going to shoot a good score. You learn to control your swing and get consistent with it. If you can hit the same shot all the time, you can take half the golf course out of play," Don shares.

The Round That Meant the Most

In July 2021, Cherrey lost his wife to breast cancer. He had spent months away from the course, at her side, and golf had moved far to the back of his mind. That August, the Medina Golf and Country Club senior club championship came around. He entered, uncertain of where his game was after everything. He found himself in a four-hole playoff.

And he won.

"I felt her right on my shoulder," Don says.

Golf doesn't make grief smaller. But for a brief moment after winning that championship, Don felt like she was still with him.

The Mental Game

Roughly 15 years ago, when the yips, involuntary muscle spasms, arrived and dismantled his game, Don realized getting through it required less of a mechanical fix and more of a perspective shift.

"I was putting way too much pressure on myself. A lot of times you get stuck thinking that golf defines who you are and it really doesn't. Golf's just a game you play. My mantra became: it's only golf. And then I relaxed, and all of a sudden you can make a decent smooth stroke again," Don says.

The Senior Tour, with its friendlier competitive atmosphere, has given him the right environment to practice that.

"It gets back to controlling your emotions. On the Senior Tour, people aren't as fired up about shooting their personal best every time,” Don shares. “They just hope to have a good round and enjoy the company of the guys they're with."

Hard to Beat

Cherrey has played almost 90% of Senior Tour events since joining back in 2016. He now competes in the Masters division.

The tour pulls players from across the state, longtime competitors and first-timers alike. The handicap system levels the field, the courses are strong, and the culture is welcoming.

For anyone curious about competitive golf but unsure if they belong, Cherrey says, "You get to play good golf courses and meet good guys. It's hard to beat."

He also points to representing Minnesota in the Minnesota-Wisconsin Challenge Cup — the state won in 2025 for the first time in about a decade — as one of the highlights of his time with the MGA. He shares his thank you for the MGA staff and for what the tour has given him since retirement.

As Arnold Palmer once put it, golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated. Cherrey has lived that fully and he plans to keep doing so.