Highland Park reborn

Source: Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minn.)

Very early on Tuesdays and Thursdays of his youth, Ed Johnson threw his mom's old set of Patty Berg irons over his shoulder and pedaled his Huffy bicycle up the Davern Street hill - a lung-buster leaving home every morning, a joy returning every afternoon - to play Highland Park's 18-hole golf course for 50 cents.

On weekends, he returned to caddie for his dad, Don, a fine amateur during the 1950s and 1960s who once won the club's championship and three times qualified for the USGA's National Public Links championship. Ed Johnson often heard his dad - a talented short-game player - mutter about Highland 18's slow, table-top greens, wishing somebody would rebuild them.

Last week, 79 years after its first nine holes opened, four years after Johnson's father died, Highland 18 was reborn as Highland National, its ancient turf and anachronistic layout replaced during a $4.5 million renovation that closed the course for two seasons.

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