When Dan Pohl decided to build Logger's Trail Golf Course in Stillwater four years ago, his first move was to ask golfers what kind of course they would like to play.
He put together a team of some of Minnesota golf's most respected names and asked them to design the course. His architects were:
* John Harris, the 1993 U.S. Amateur champion who is in his third season on the Champions Tour.
* Dave Tentis, a former State Amateur and State Open champion who played briefly on the PGA Tour and is now designer and general manager at Tanner's Brook GC in Forest Lake.
* Mike Fermoyle, a three-time State Amateur champion who is a sportswriter with the Pioneer Press.
* Bev Vanstrum, a multiple past champion of the Women's State Amateur.
They joined Pohl, the majority owner at Logger's Trail and Sawmill golf courses, and John McCarthy, his greens superintendent for the past two decades, in deciding what kind of golf course would rise from 160 acres of Washington County farmland.
Pohl, a chemical engineer at 3M who spent most of his 35 years there managing research and development programs, assembled an ownership team of 20 people, consisting mostly of his golfing buddies, and assumed control at Sawmill Golf Course in 1984.
When Bruce Ramsden, whose farm land on the south side of Sawmill had been in his family since 1853, was ready to retire in 2000, he suggested Pohl build a golf course there.
After spending the previous decade and a half rebuilding Sawmill, Pohl's first response was no thanks. "Too much work," he said. But he became interested after he walked the property and started looking for ways to make it work.
"We couldn't afford a prominent architect, but I was always intrigued by what The Classic (at Madden's Resort in Brainerd) did," Pohl said. "Their superintendent (Scott Hoffman) outlined the course and brought in a team of local golfers to help him refine the project."
After two years of construction, Logger's Trail opened on July 1, 2003.
"I've been asked a lot, 'Who built which holes?' " Pohl said. "But in a good team project you build one idea after another to come up with something you might not have had without the interaction. I think that's what we were able to do."
Pohl calls the final product "70 percent links-like and 30 percent parkland." Four sets of tees stretch the 18-hole championship layout from 5,322 yards to 7,235.
Most of the holes meander from one end of the old Ramsden family farm to the other, light on trees but heavy on rolling mounds that separate fairways.
And then there's a stretch of four holes on the front side -- Nos. 4, 5, 6 and 7 -- that are carved out of woods that were unsuitable for farming. They have become some of Logger's Trail's most distinctive holes. "You step on the fourth tee," Pohl said, "and it's like you've been transported to northern Minnesota."
Both Sawmill and Logger's Trail were named to honor Stillwater's rich logging tradition. Members enjoy playing privileges at both courses, giving them different experiences. Sawmill plays shorter, tighter and more target-oriented; Logger's Trail is longer, grander and more appealing to top-level players.
When Logger's Trail opened last summer, the biggest complaint came from players losing balls in the belt-high native grass that grew on the mounding that runs along most holes. Pohl says the course has concentrated this summer on trimming the grass to make the mounds playable.
Complaints about lost balls have decreased dramatically, and Pohl has a course he is proud of.
After opening last year, Logger's Trail did 14,000 rounds in 2003. It is on pace for about 28,000 in 2004, Pohl said. Sawmill will do about 30,000 rounds this year.
Greens fees are $38 weekdays and $42 weekends at Logger's Trail, $28 and $34 at Sawmill.
"I'd like Logger's Trail to be considered in the upper-echelon of daily-fee courses in the Twin Cities," Pohl said. "I'd like us to be right up there with the best of them. But most importantly, it has to be affordable to play. We want people to come here and feel like they got a good value."
Source: Saint Paul Pioneer Press (Minnesota)
