Benson

Benson Municipal Golf Course

Paperwork approved: 11/2/35

Cost:$65,608 (or so); $36,000 (October 1937) (an additional $22,000 was chipped in by the State Executive Council) - although the additional funds included money for the pool and recreational facilities adjacent to the golf course), and $33,711 (again in 1939/40)Architect: Tom Vardon

Holes: 9 (now holes

Opened: Open house July 20, 1937; official opening September 20, 1937

Small town politics. Cozy relationships. Interlocking memberships. Big dreams and people who make it happen – that’s the real story in Benson.

There was an existing golf course in Benson, and the Club had big ideas. They had the sand/oil greens and the need for a clubhouse, a watering system put in so the fairways and greens would be more playable in the summer when the dry air made hitting the ball off the ground analogous to hitting it off a cement road, and also a caddyshack.

When Christian Gaustau found out Benson was awarded the golf course by the WPA, who did he call? Not the mayor, it was the head of the group championing the course. Later, when they had the photo-op first shovel, CV was there, and he was there again when they had its official opening. Pretty cool for a town with a population of ???

However, maybe as a result of this relationship, there is more WPA paperwork on the Benson Golf Course than any other course. Because, in addition to the large blueprints of the watering system, a transcribed phone call, contracts, petitions, newspaper articles and reports, there are the letters; lots of letters from angry bureaucrats asking some very pointed questions and demanding some remedies in how Benson and the Club interfaced - for years.

Another complicating factor, was Benson just ran out of money, and couldn’t even borrow, sell bonds, or raise the taxes to pay for their share of the project. The State Executive Committee gave $22,000 for this project. [One persuading feature for the Executive Committee was the fact construction would employ 80 people, plus an additional 37 men in the area - which could provide 64,000 man hours of relief work. ]

There was also a little bit of the amateurism in how the course was built too. To wit, there is a letter from the District Director of the WPA who supervised the project, where he writes writes how he and Mr. Charles Scheuer did the original layout of the holes and tees, but ...

"Neither Mr. Scheuer or myself are golf experts. Since that time–and this was intended from the first, the sponsors have employed Tom Vardon, a golf expert,

to lay out the course, and he spotted all tees and holes in entirely different locations than they were shown on the preliminary layout map. This in turn

necessitated a new lay out of the water pipe..”(7/7/36)

But, the construction of the course did what it was supposed to do, the supervisor also mentions, in the same letter mentions the project was set up for 1129 man hours of labor, and there was an average crew of 25 all fall and winter, then down to 20 in the spring. He adds, the project will ‘provide a great deal of valuable work for next winter.”

It is pretty clear, there were some sweetheart deals, but on the other hand, the City ended up with a wonderful golf course and clubhouse and wall and extension of the waterline for a mere few thousand more.

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A little more information:

A letter explaining the lease problem with the city of Benson and the Benson Golf Club (a long story short, in order for governmental units to get WPA work done, they MUST own the property, the city HAS to own the course, but and there was this sketchy lease with the club and there was an investigation, threats, but ultimate resolution), talks about how the club

deeded the golf course land to the City in order to have the course improved with grass greens and a watering systems d and to have the clubhouse built. Golf course members did practicably all the work involved in drawing up plans for the improvement and in getting the project approved by the WPA. Of course, the principal object of the Golf Club as to obtain thee improvements without cost to the club members, whose only expense was an additional expense of $500.00 to buy additional land needed for course as newly laid out. (emphasis added)

A summary in the March 26th, 1940 Swift County News of WPA Accomplishments lists, “a nine-hole golf course, with modern clubhouse in Benson.”

An April 1939 letter to the public by the new mayor of Benson points out

“an average of 60 men have received a livelihood for a period of approximately a year and three months” from the WPA.

Besides the golf course, the WPA built a wonderful clubhouse and stone wall on the street. Both of these structures still exist today. The WPA also built the waterline to the course, which the city had somehow forgotten to ask for in its original application.

In May 1940, the Club asked the city/WPA project, to construct a caddy house near the clubhouse.

Then, there was the additional small part about needing to buy the extra land...$4,750.

This might be one of the last golf courses Vardon designed as he died in October 1938.

Link to the current course: http://www.bensongolfclub.com/http://www.bensongolfclub.com/