Montgomery National Golf Club Review

I grew up listening to the Beatles and their anthology of original music. Lo and behold, the director of "Lord of the Rings" Trilogy Peter Jackson has produced a 3-part documentary on the 1969 making of the Beatles "Let it Be" album, which is streaming on Disney Plus.

For those of you who love golf and the Beatles, I have found the perfect 18-hole course for you. It's located in Minnesota and owned by the biggest Beatles fan ever, Greg McKush, a 30 year PGA Professional, originally from Canada.

Montgomery National Golf Club is located about an hour south of Minneapolis and Greg has gone all-in with making the club a Beatles-themed venue. He bought the course in 2018 and has been adding Beatles paraphernalia ever since. You are greeted by a 17-foot guitar as you drive in the parking lot. Once inside the current small clubhouse, there are Beatles memorabilia everywhere including a limited edition Beatles-themed jukebox (the same one Steven Tyler from Aerosmith owns). When you click on the website, the home page has an image of the Fab Four's Abbey Road album cover super-imposed on the course.

No, it doesn't stop there. The scorecard is a piece of Beatles music themed with holes like 'Strawberry Fields Forever', the par 4 6th with an actual strawberry patch near the tee. The first hole is 'With a Little Help From My Friends.' The 10th, another par 4, 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps,' has a fairway bunker shaped like an Olson guitar which is 55 yards long and 20 feet at its widest point. The finishing hole has a one-ton yellow submarine floating in a pond that you have to maneuver to reach the green. I'll let you guess its name.

Recently, sixteen lads traveled 75 miles to play the course all dressed in Beatles shirts. Occasionally, Greg will get out his guitar and serenade the players singing a tune or two over his 1,100 watt PA system, that, when the wind is right, can be heard throughout the course.

You might think the club is not good enough to stand alone as a traditional golf course, but you couldn't be more wrong. Montgomery National was the first design by Minnesota's popular golf architect, Joel Goldstrand, in 1994, and considered by many as one of his best. The 6,544 yard, par 72, 18 hole championship layout has a nice flow to it, where Goldstrand used the natural topography of the rural countryside to carve out a challenging yet playable parkland-style course. The design features water hazards on eight holes, well-placed bunkers, wide tree-lined fairways and smooth fast bent grass greens in a beautiful setting.

In 2022, when spring comes around there will be a new log cabin style clubhouse with an outdoor amphitheater complete with a stage for outdoor concerts, overlooking the 18th green and fairway with the yellow submarine floating in the pond. Rates are reasonable for the area and golfers are allowed to walk for $30 a round.