The 6,700-yard facility – known for its large and fast greens – was the first championship course constructed in the lakes area and is just around the corner from the new Palmer-designed Deacon’s Lodge, the talk of the nation’s golf community which will open in 1999.

Deacon’s Lodge project manager, Pete Loyd, worked closely with Breezy Point to design and install a system of giant waste bunkers – some cover more than an acre of ground – at the Whitebirch course. The additions will significantly toughen play along Whitebirch’s long fairways and oversized greens.

As golfers know, waste bunkers are the "death traps" of some of the toughest courses in the world. They are rough areas off the fairway and approaches to the greens that are filled with sand, bushes, long grasses – and maybe a log or two. They are bounded by bunker mounds, often several yards high, and are never raked by the player who is allowed to ground the club.

"The waste bunkers also will give the course a more natural look in keeping with its northern Minnesota location," Gravdahl says.

Loyd also lengthened many of Whitebirch’s tee boxes and a couple of its fairways, and he added truckloads of trees for some of the long par-4s.

"Twenty years ago, all you had to do was cut the fairways and water the greens," says Gravdahl, who has overseen Breezy Point’s emergence as one of the premier meeting and golf destinations in Minnesota. "Today’s golfers, however, want a better experience, with a chance to score well on a championship course.

"We opened Whitebirch in 1981 when championship play Up North was unheard of," Gravdahl says. "The bunker project -- after many earlier improvements -- is the frosting, and it helps us keep up with the Big Boys in the Brainerd lakes area."

Whitebirch is also known for its Antlers clubhouse, a regional landmark in design and landscaping. The bunker project began at the close of the summer season and was completed a few weeks later.

With 22 new bunkers on 11 of Whitebirch’s holes, the course will play much differently in 1999, Gravdahl says.

"You’ll have to drive your ball straight and true, all the shortcuts have been cut off. And if you over-hit a green, you’ll have to come out of hard sand and tall weeds," he says. "The premium will be on accuracy rather than on distance. It’ll feel a little like Scotland."