Maplewood: Goodrich Golf Course reopens with upgrades to grounds, environment

Published On: Thu, Jun 12th, 2025

Sports | By admin

Maplewood: Goodrich Golf Course reopens with upgrades to grounds, environment

A group of golfers lingered around a table on the patio outside the clubhouse last week at Ramsey County’s Goodrich Golf Course in Maplewood, enjoying the sunshine and their drinks.

How are they enjoying the renovations and improvements at the golf course?

“Love it,” said Edna Rafferty. “The paths are really nice.”

There’s a lot to love, both seen and unseen, at the Maplewood course after the recently completed renovations and improvements, including new and repaved golf cart paths.

Ramsey County Parks & Recreation is inviting the public to come and check out the changes — and play some golf — in a grand reopening event later this month.

The Summer Solstice Celebration will run from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, June 21, and include a ribbon cutting, course tours, prizes, a Market BBQ food truck and more.

There’s also still room to register for a free, 18-hole tournament with a shotgun start at 2 p.m. (learn more and sign up at Ramseycounty.us/GoodrichTournment).

64 years old

Ramsey County Parks & Recreation manages four golf courses and one golf dome.

The Goodrich Golf Course, a 110-acre course with a clubhouse and a full bar, dates back to 1961: John F. Kennedy was president, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” was playing in theaters and milk cost about 36 cents a gallon.

Times have changed, and so have golf courses. It was time for an update for this course, which typically sees more than 30,000 golf rounds a season.

The course, located at 1820 North Van Dyke St., closed the day after Labor Day last year so the extensive renovations and improvements could get started before winter.

The construction, according to Ramsey County, included adding forward tees, improved bunkers and repaved cart paths throughout the golf course. A smart irrigation system was also installed to use (less) water in a more targeted and efficient way.

Scott Weik, the superintendent of the course, illustrated the smart irrigation system by controlling one of the sprinkler heads individually, demonstrating how he could avoid spraying a golfer driving by in a cart.

That golfer was Peach Larson, one of the course regulars.

“They did a really good job,” Larson said of the changes. “Just the changes of bunkers (hazards) are outstanding: They got rid of bunkers that were not in play and put in bunkers that were more in play.”

Dressed in a preppy purple golfing ensemble, Larson considered the new look of the course as he stood underneath the shade of a tree.

“Before, the fairways and tees, they were always fine and green because irrigation would cover them,” Larson said. “It’s off the fairways and greens that was always brown. Last year, it would have been brown by now. But it’s green now, and that’s nice.”

He plans to golf here regularly, as usual, since he lives close by — and for other reasons, too.

“It’s not always just the location,” he said. “That’s part of it, but it’s the people, too. Other regulars. That’s part of the equation.”

Populated with pollinators

While golf courses sometimes face criticism for their use of water and chemicals, it’s not only a more sustainable irrigation system at play at this golf course:

“Sustainability and being environmentally conscientious is really important,” said Liz Flinn, director of operations for golf courses and ice arenas for Ramsey County Parks and Recreation, as she sat overlooking the course from the clubhouse’s patio. “Scott has been working with the Ramsey-Washington (Metro) Watershed to convert areas that are out of play into prairie areas.”

“To attract more pollinators, to attract more wildlife, more birds,” Weik says.

While this course is known as a walkable one, Weik hopped on a golf cart to cross it quickly for a tour.

Rolling down the new pathways and across a dirt path of an emerging prairie, he turned around to point out a favorite spot that seemed far away from the metro hustle and bustle.

“This hole is probably one of my favorite holes,” he says of No. 14. “This hole reminds me so much of an Up North golf course like the Brainerd area with all the evergreens.”

$ 3.5 million

Nearly all of the construction work, save the cart path paving, was completed last fall and the golf course opened for the season on March 27.

The funding for the project, which cost approximately $ 3.5 million, came from the county’s capital improvement program funds.

Some highlights:

Cart paths: Added 4,100 feet of new cart paths; removed and repaved another 6,375 feet.

Irrigation: Installed 9.6 miles of pipe and 600 sprinkler heads. The smart system can be customized by zone and includes automated scheduling and remote monitoring, ultimately leading to less water usage.

Bunkers: To speed up the pace of play, 34 bunkers were decreased to 21; all remaining bunkers were installed with drain tile.

Forward tees: Twelve new forward tees have been installed, played at 4,515 yards (shortened by 561 yards), thus increasing course playability for all levels.

Sustainability: Over the past three years, with the help of the Ramsey-Washington Metro Watershed District, more than three acres of turf grass has undergone prairie restoration, with the process of converting an additional four acres started in 2024. This work includes transplanting trees. Also, over the past two years, 140 diseased ash trees were removed.

Get more info about the course, the renovations, the celebration and the tournament at ramseycounty.us/residents/parks-recreation/golf.

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