Golf in Minneapolis

The Director of Instruction at Edinburgh USA Golf Academy and PGA-certified instructor Adam Guili teaches swing-honing wisdom and results-oriented practice techniques accrued through a 14-year teaching career. Adam’s teaching philosophy is based on the notion that a sound short game and a simple golf swing are crucial to achieving success on the course, and he helps golfers develop a tension-free motion. During lessons, Adam can address any on-course concern, such as how to add length to drives or how to extract shirttails from ball washers.

Soaring drives splash onto three-dimensional greens at Inside Edge Golf, where nine aboutGolf PGA Tour simulators set the scene for year-round golf and revelry. Stunning, realistic graphics reproduce more than 50 world-famous courses on the facility's sprawling screens, summoning golfers to carefully tread the ocean-side vistas at Pebble Beach or eschew diminutive jeers from the wind-swirling pixels that plague St. Andrews.

On The Back 9, players trade electronic courses for an 1,800-square-foot practice green outfitted with chipping areas, breaking putts, and a mini flop hedge. Leagues throughout the winter crown champions with simulated green jackets, and Kitchen, which is open year-round, sustains swing strength with snacks, sodas, and beers.

Designed by prolific course architect Joel Goldstrand, Rum River Hills Golf Club's 18-hole course weaves through 6,308 yards of water-lined fairways and undulating greens. Water hazards present challenges from the very first tee, where aggressive players may choose to lay up or drive balls over a pond to cut the corner off of a fairway that dog-legs right, setting up a favorable approach onto a green 413 yards away. Rum River Hills tests players’ short game with undulating greens that take golf balls through more sharp turns than a golf cart driving through a grocery store.

A full-length driving range allows players to warm up before they take to the course, and the club's PGA instructors offer lessons for those looking to improve their swing mechanics. After a day at the links, course patrons can drop in at McDuff's Restaurant, which serves an expansive menu of salads, burgers, steaks, and pizzas. Inside the sunlit dining room, 11 TVs let guests catch up with live sports, while outdoor patio seating caters to those hoping to reverse engineer the technology of the lawn mowers maintaining the course below.

Course at a Glance:

• Designed by Joel Goldstrand
• 18-hole, par 71 course
• Length of 6,308 yards from the farthest tees
• Course rating of 71.0 from the farthest tees
• Slope rating of 117 from the farthest tees
• Four tee options

Golfers of all experience and confidence levels are accommodated by 18 diverse holes spanning more than 6,600 yards of well-groomed fairways and four sets of tees. Designed by Joel Goldstrand, the Heritage Links course features arbor-lined greens, 45 bunkers, and challenging water hazards on 16 of the 18 holes. Before you saunter up to swing for your full round, warm up your putt and pendulum arm in Heritage's practice facility, consisting of a wide-open driving range and manicured putting greens. In between holes, keep your feet and legs well rested in preparation for their victory dance by kicking up your spikes and relaxing in the included golf cart.

Brad Pluth Golf has earned the PGA’s golf clap of approval by using high-tech equipment to give players an edge. The golf emporium’s custom club fittings rely on the Ping nflight system, a virtual modeling system that produces club-head specs precisely calibrated for each golfer’s swing. Other training approaches include the biomechanical swing analysis, which evaluates players’ techniques so they know how to correct their slices or compensate for the fact that they’re hitting with a cricket bat. In addition to private and semi-private adult lessons, youth leagues ready clubbers as young as 4 to play nine holes and participate in tournaments.

Mississippi Dunes Golf Links' sophisticated, 18-hole layout blankets 3,000 feet of rolling Mississippi River shoreline with manicured, bent-grass fairways and an inventive, tree-lined design. As golfers cruise over the course atop a cart or a caddy training to be an Olympic power squatter, majestic views of the river appear through groves of trees that shelter native prairie creatures. On their odyssey from tee boxes to speedy, contoured greens, golf balls must split fairways to avoid sidelines riddled with mounds, pot bunkers, and knee-high grasses—a trinity of hazards that imbue the course with a Scottish, links-style vibe. A memorable tee shot awaits at the 399-yard, par-4 fifth hole—the course's most difficult, nicknamed "Humpback" for the large mound in the middle of the fairway as well as its voracious appetite for krill—where golfers must draw or fade drives around a dogleg left.

After hacking their way across the breeze-swept links, guests can unwind at Doc's Landing Pub, where a menu of traditional grill fare, fish, and pizza sates tour-worthy appetites. Patrons can look out on the river on the Pub's patio, catch up on the day's sporting events in the glow of a flat-panel TV, or discuss how greenskeepers maintain the immaculate felt that covers the billiards table.