30 years ago, the number one golfer in the world was Tom Lehman. The Alexandria, Minnesota, native sat atop the golf world, his name freshly etched onto the Claret Jug after winning the 1996 Open Championship at Royal Lytham & St. Annes — cementing his place among the game's all-time greats.
That season not only changed Lehman's life, it put Minnesota on the map as a golf hotbed. This is not to say the golf world was unfamiliar with Minnesota as a "golf state," but to be home to the top-ranked player in the world and reigning Open Champion cast a new light on our state.
"I think Tom has really done so much to put Minnesota up there and say, 'This is a recognized golf state,'" says Jim Lehman, Tom's older brother and a past president of the Minnesota Golf Association. "He's not only been a major champion and the number one player in the world, but he's been a Ryder Cup captain, a three-time Ryder Cup player, a three-time President's Cup player. Six times he was an all-star, so to speak, in the world of golf — and that's never happened in Minnesota golf."
What makes that legacy all the more remarkable is where it started: not at some elite academy or year-round training facility, but on the modest fairways of the Alexandria Golf Club, in a small town four hours from the nearest PGA Tour event, where a kid could only play half the year.
The Lehman family's relationship with golf traces back even further, to their father, who grew up near Breckenridge, Minnesota, and was introduced to the game as a boy by the Catholic priest who lived next door. "The priest would grab my dad and say, 'You're going to caddy for me today,'" Jim recalls, laughing. "My dad was only about ten years old. And after they'd play, the priest might hit a few practice shots and my dad might hit a couple. That's how he was introduced to the game." Their father never became a serious player himself, but the seed was planted, and it grew.
All three Lehman boys caught the bug. Growing up in Alexandria, Tom, Jim, and their brother Mike played multiple sports, football and basketball among them. Golf was a spring activity sandwiched between the melting snow and football practice that started in August. Nobody was dreaming of a tour card. "It wasn't like there was any inspiration that, 'Hey, I want to be a professional golfer someday,'" Jim says. "We were small-town kids who happened to have access to a nice little small-town golf course."
But the game had a way of deepening its hold. By the time all three brothers reached college — Tom to the University of Minnesota, Jim to St. John's, Mike also to Minnesota — each became captain of his college golf team. Mike, whom Jim describes as a standout junior player, was one of the top players on the Gopher squad and competed in the U.S. Junior Amateur. "Not many people can say this," Jim says, "but all three of us played in at least one USGA championship."
Still, the Lehmans were hardly unique in their devotion to the game. They were, in many ways, a portrait of Minnesota golf: passionate, multi-sport, shaped by short seasons and cold springs — and all the more hungry for it because of that.
Jim believes the Minnesota winters are a big factor in the state's golf culture. "The fact that we can't play year-round makes people want to get out as soon as possible," he says. "You see it — on a nice March day when it's 45 degrees, the tee sheet is full. People watch golf on TV all winter, they can't wait to get out and play. I think the whole psychology is that sometimes, what you can't have, you want more than ever."
That hunger has produced something remarkable over the decades. Legends like Patty Berg, John Harris, and Tim Herron, along with Tom Lehman, have carried Minnesota's flag on the biggest stages in the game. But Jim is quick to point out that the state's golf identity isn't built only on champions.
"Golf is a game where you don't have to be a great tournament golfer to love it," he says. "There are people at every level who come to love the game for different reasons. The reason I love it is probably completely different from somebody who's a social golfer who plays once a week and doesn't really care what they shoot — they just go out to play. But we all have that same thing in common: we love the game."
The belief that golf belongs to everyone, from the first-time player navigating a municipal nine-hole to the Ryder Cup captain, is something Jim has carried into his own service to the game. As a past president of the Minnesota Golf Association and a soon-to-be inductee into the Minnesota Golf Hall of Fame, he has spent years working to ensure the sport remains accessible and meaningful to every golfer in the state.
"You don't have to be a state amateur champion to feel successful or excited about golf," he says. "You can just be a spectator. You can be someone who goes out and plays nine holes on a weekend. Different people, different motivations, and that's what's so cool about it."
Thirty years after Tom Lehman stood alone at the top of the world rankings, his story remains a testament to what this state produces: players shaped by frozen winters, small-town courses, and an almost irrational love for a game they can only play half the year. But it's also a reminder that the things that made Tom Lehman a champion, the early morning practice sessions, the hand-me-down shag bag, the Alexandria fairways in April, are the same things that connect him to every golfer in Minnesota who has ever waited too long for the snow to melt.