Tom Lehman begins 45-hole project at Cragun’s Resort in Minnesota

Cragun’s Resort on Gull Lake in Brainerd, Minnesota, is progressing with a 45-hole golf project.

Lehman Design Group and Duininck Golf are transforming the resort’s two 18-hole courses – Bobby’s Legacy and Dutch Legacy – into a revised 27-hole layout named The Dutch. Speaking with the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal earlier this year, Lehman said: “We want to give each golf course their own identity. In some places, that means fixing the greens. They have these big berms that force every ball into the same spot in the fairway. It’s filled with divots.”

Lehman and his architecture firm will also design a new 18-hole course which, according to the resort’s general manager Eric Peterson, will be “like nothing else in Minnesota”.

“Tom is an accomplished player, with a gift for visualising what each hole can be long before it is built,” said Chris Kleinsmith, Duininck Golf’s project manager. “It is always very exciting to work with a designer that started out as a tour player.”

“We aspire to have 45 holes of world class golf – The Dutch 27 and the Lehman 18 – and to be considered the preeminent golf resort in Minnesota,” said Peterson. “No doubt we will achieve this goal.”

Thirty-six holes will be open by August 2022 – including the new Lehman 18 – with the final nine holes of the Dutch 27 to open in summer 2023.

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