EAST GULL LAKE — The resort that brought you The Classic Golf Course is bringing an improved practice experience.
That’s right. We’re talking practice.
Madden’s Resort invested more than $200,000 and likely as much manpower to give its Airport Driving Range a facelift that could make practicing golf as enjoyable as playing it on one of the lakes area’s championship courses.
“We’ve been looking at this for a while to have a top-of-the-line practice facility,” Madden's Chief Operating Officer Ben Thuringer said. “With our junior program booming like it is, with golf growing like it is for all of the area courses, it was just time that we got out there and did a bunch of work. Tanner Schoenfelder, our course superintendent who came on board with us a year ago, created a design that we felt would really hit home.
Kelly Humphrey / Brainerd Dispatch
“After this grows, we feel like this will be on brand with the rest of our offering.”
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The redesign is the first major renovation to the 60-year-old, 40-arce driving range since indoor practice facilities were built.
The Airport Driving Range is the warmup spot for the Madden’s Pine Beach East, Pine Beach West and Social Nine and one of the few public driving ranges in the area. It’s also home to a junior program that features up to 100 junior golfers and the home of Chris Foley Golf School.
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“Now it’s not just a driving range, it’s a practice facility,” Foley said. “Now you can truly practice to precise targets. It’s a big difference hitting golf balls out there with just a target in mind. Now you have real greens. They all have a size and shape to them. There is an intent to it. If you’re hitting a shot to 150 yards, the size of the green is within the tour average. If you’re hitting that green, you know you’re hitting the right club.
“For our junior golf, when we’re doing these supervised practice sessions, it just enhances the experience. It’s like hitting at the golf course. Golf is the only sport where you don’t practice on the actual field of play. This transforms that.”
Kelly Humphrey / Brainerd Dispatch
Visually, Madden’s added eight sand bunkers near some of the 14 target greens and 18 target flags. Those bunkers won’t come into effect, but rather provide an aesthetically realistic feel to the targets giving patrons a feel for what to expect on the course.
There is a practice bunker to hit out of along with targets varying from 25 to 225 yards. A sprawling fairway dissects the middle of the range for multiple reasons.
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