Windsong Farm Golf Club in Independence, Minnesota, has opened its North course, designed by golf course architect John Fought, a former PGA Tour player.   

Fought also co-designed the club’s South course alongside Tom Lehman in 2002, and has been involved in renovation work at the club since then. With the opening of the North course, the club says “members now enjoy an amazing variety of golf-architecture experiences, a mix of new and old design concepts that build on the game’s traditions of strategic design while providing enjoyment to golfers of all skill levels”. 

Windsong Farm owner David Meyer asked Fought to make the North course as good, fun, but different from the South, which can play at more than 7,500 yards and features large greens with subtle undulations and collection areas inspired by the work of Donald Ross.   

Read more: John Fought returns to Windsong Farm to design second course (February 2023) 

The North is on a smaller piece of property – about 125 acres vs 220 for the South – and pays homage to Seth Raynor, among other Golden Age architects. Fought has created a par-70 of almost 6,500 yards, with inspiration from Eden, Biarritz, Dell, Redan and Cape templates. Holes thirteen and sixteen share a boomerang-shaped double green, most of the bunkers are rectangular with grass faces, and the fairways are broad and open with a strip of maintained rough that leads into thin and wispy fescue. Fought has also designed short green-to-tee transitions. 

“You wouldn’t know the same person designed both of these courses,” says Fought. “The North looks like a golf course that came from the early 1900s. It’s on a very small piece of land and I wanted to prove to people that length isn’t the only way to add drama to a golf course.”   

With views of Fox Lake and surrounding horse pastures, the North Course includes six par-three and four par-five holes. Fought says it is the most diverse course he has ever built, with holes fourteen to sixteen, all par fours, are the only consecutive holes on the course with the same par. 

“This course is going to force you to think,” Fought says. “You can’t just get up and hammer it. You’ll have to think, ‘Do I want to hit driver here?’ Some of the greens are tiny, and others are huge. The Biarritz green at number 4 is 17,000 square feet, where a normal green is 6,000. And I think golfers will use every club on the par-threes. 

“We configured it to create the most diversity you can get on a golf course.”