Golf at Minor Park Turns 50
By Topher Wilson
This week the golf center at Minor Park will celebrate its 50th birthday—or at least half of it will. The first nine holes of the eventual 18-hole course were completed in June of 1966, with the rest coming on in the spring of the following year (The delay was due to heavy equipment being diverted to help clean up Topeka after a series of tornados came through in June of 1966.) The course came complete with many state-of-the-art amenities for the time including pop-up sprinklers for the greens and plug-ins for the fairways, a clubhouse with a pro shop, lockers and showers, as well as a fleet of Toro brand electric golf carts.
The course was the brainchild of local land developer Larry Flatt. Flatt, in addition to locating the former plot of farmland on which to build the course, also designed the course, supervised construction and acted as the course’s first superintendent. Seriously expanding the size of Minor Park, Flatt’s plans incorporated 140 additional acres to the 240 acres the park had encompassed before.
Now days, Minor Park is among the most popular courses in the area. Offering one of the most “walkable” golf experiences around, the course is ideal for a relaxing game for novices and experts alike. With a host of different leagues, events, tournaments, lessons, and private functions being held regularly, it’s no doubt that the Minor Park Golf Course will be celebrating many more anniversaries in the years to come.