Today marks a beginning and an end at Bunker Hills Golf Course in Coon Rapids.
A gala ribbon-cutting this afternoon means the official opening of the municipal course's posh new $9.3 million clubhouse. But it's also the final workday for Dick Tollette, director of golf at Bunker Hills since it opened in 1968.
"After 44 years here, it's a new adventure," Tollette said last week.
From all accounts, Tollette, now 72, the onetime shop teacher and golf coach at Coon Rapids High School, never stopped teaching and coaching.
He's known for founding the state's junior golf program. Now with 1,700 kids on its roster, the Minnesota program is a national model. Across the nation, golf courses are run by his protégés.
Now the same is true for Bunker Hills, where the new director of golf is Tim Anderson, who grew up walking and biking to the course to play and work and who has worked under Tollette for 10 years. "It's going to be like taking the training wheels off," he said. "It's going to be exciting."
A member of the steering committee that planned the course, Tollette was tapped to run it in 1966, only to find that the entire $350,000 budget had been used to plan, build and seed the course, and there was no money left to build a clubhouse or maintenance building or to purchase equipment.
He was undaunted.
"I jumped on it," he said. "Education and coaching was a dream, but this was the kind of dream you think might never come your way."
So while the grass seed was slumbering under the snow during the winter of 1967, he and others secured a $75,000 loan from the city's municipal liquor fund. He used part of it to build the original clubhouse, with help from his shop students.
The course opened for business in the spring of 1968. That season saw about 16,000 rounds of golf.
Over the years, the course has expanded twice. The old clubhouse was remodeled beyond recognition before it was razed earlier this year to make way for a parking lot for the new clubhouse. The course has been home to the 1976 U.S. Golf Association Public Links Championship, the 1993-2000 PGA Senior Tour, the 2004 Northern National PGA Club Professional Championship, and since 1990, the State High School League AAA Golf Championship.
A family affair
The worst days were when Mother Nature dealt the course a blow, like in 1993, when a storm took out 400 trees a week and a half before the start of the PGA Senior Tournament.
And it was tough for Tollette to watch his teacher friends retire. It was hard on his family, too, he said, to know that his summers belonged to the golf course.
But along the way, he and his wife, Marvy, instilled a love of the game that has been a family bond for four grown children, all of whom have made careers in golf. His pride in the facility he built from the greens up is evident.
The course is beautiful and challenging enough for the most elite levels of the game, but friendly enough to be a draw for the general public, to the tune of 90,000 rounds played last year, he said. From the beginning, it's been self-sustaining, and the plan is that the construction bonds for the new clubhouse will be paid by user revenues.
"In my vision, the golf course is what I thought it would be," he said. "It's stood the test of time with great championships, but it also is so well-received by the public, it's the busiest [public] golf course in town."
Tollette has been recognized for his efforts too many times to recount, including Minnesota Golf Professional of the Year (twice), PGA of America Junior Golf Leader, and in 2009 he was inducted to the Minnesota PGA Hall of Fame. He's served in every level of leadership of the Minnesota section of the PGA, said the current president, Paul Kelley, who also is head golf professional at Bent Creek Golf Club in Eden Prairie.
"The list is endless, I would imagine, of the people he has touched over 44 years," he said. "He's impacted so many people, and people look up to Dick and pick up the phone and say, 'Dick, give me some advice on this.' He's just a mentor."
Likewise, at TPC Twin Cities in nearby Blaine, Alan Cull has called on Tollette when Mother Nature hit his own course, relocating a U.S. Open qualifier to Bunker Hills as recently as May.
"Dick has always been available to help out," he said. "You get to know who are the people you can count on and those you can't count on. Dick is one you can count on."
For the short term, Tollette hopes to do some traveling with Marvy, whose patience and encouragement Tollette credits for his long tenure at the course.
"We've got all kinds of crazy plans," he said. "We might visit golf courses run by professionals I've trained. I think we could be on the road for a long time."
But on Thursday, he'll be back at Bunker Hills as a patron. And he's promised to help in the future, too, as a teacher.
Maria Elena Baca • 612-673-4409
