Hello friends and welcome to our new blog! We are going to dedicate this blog to exploring the art of golf in the state of South Dakota.
If you’re a newcomer to golfing, South Dakota might not immediately make you think of golf, but the state, despite not being very populous, actually has many golf courses and that small population in fact aids the creation of vast new courses in the gorgeous South Dakotan wilderness.
With this blog, we are going to try to show you that South Dakota is a great place for golfing. Come with us on a trip to the Mount Rushmore state and explore everything that South Dakota has to offer in terms of golfing.
Much like every new adventure, this one should also start by learning about the history of golfing in South Dakota. We will use this first blog post to tell you all about it.
History of American Golfing and Golfing in South Dakota
Golfing is thought to have been first played in St Andrews, Scotland. There are other theories that speak of Roman and Chinese games that resemble golf, but the modern game of golf is widely accepted to have originated in the North Sea town of St Andrews sometime in the 15th century.
As a result of Anglo-Scottish immigration to the New World, golf was brought to the United States. Supposedly, a merchant from Charleston, South Carolina, which was still a British colony at the time, purchased golf clubs and balls from Scotland in 1743.
In 1786, Charleston saw its first golf club and today it’s considered to be the home and originator of American golf. Golf enthusiasts from the States still go there to play their favorite game.
Still, what about South Dakota?
South Dakota became an American territory in 1861 and a state in 1889, and while it’s not known when the first game of golf was played there, one of the oldest courses in the state, the Glenridge Golf Course, recently celebrated its centennial anniversary, so it’s been at least, but certainly more than, a hundred years since golf arrived in South Dakota.
Since then, the state has produced many remarkable golf players, the best of whom are inducted in the recently-created South Dakota Golf Hall of Fame in Sioux Links, SD.
Notable South Dakotan Golfers
Perhaps two of the most exciting golfers to come from South Dakota are the sisters Marlene and Alice Bauer.
The Bauer sisters hail from Eureka, SD and made their names all the way back in the 1940’s. Marlene and Alice went on to establish the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA), along with eleven other exceptional female golfers. If you want to find out more about them, read our dedicated article on the talented Bauer sisters.
Funnily enough, the two other very famous South Dakotan golfers are also siblings, namely the brothers Curt and Tom Byrum. Coming from Onida, SD, the Byrum brothers were born at the height of the Bauer sisters careers and “accidentally” found golfing when they accepted a job mowing a golf course.
Both Tom and Curt Byrum went on to have successful careers of their own, after having turned to professional golfing in the 1980’s, participating in hundreds of PGA (Professional Golf Association) events over the course of their professional lives.
Another famous South Dakotan golfer, who didn’t have a famous golfing sibling, is Wil Collins. Collins turned professional in 2002 and has since won the Colorado Open in 2005, as well as the 2013 Dakota Dunes Casino Open.
Conclusion
We hope you enjoyed reading our first post as much as we enjoyed writing it. Now go ahead and explore our collections of articles dedicated to golfing in South Dakota.