Bakken Shale Golf Tour announced
There's still an opening on the mid-July Bakken Shale Golf Tour.
Departing from Shakopee, the prestigious event includes 18 holes of golf at the Geneva Golf Course in Alexandria, featuring a special pre-tee-off luncheon with host Beverly Brown Rolfsrud at nearby Clearwater Suites. Tee time 1 p.m. Basic accommodations follow at Motel Six Kids.
Sunday night, the tour arrives in Medora, North Dakota, to rest for an early Monday tee time at the famed Bully Pulpit Golf Course, 18 holes set deep in the gorgeous Theodore Roosevelt Badlands National Park.
That afternoon the tour remounts to cross the huge Bakken Shale Formation, said to contain the world's largest reserves of oil, locked in an oreo cookie of Shale and Dolomite, a tantalizing solution to the nation's energy woes. Roughneck tours of oil drilling operations will be conducted by local guides, with special attention to the Nils & Rebecca Rolfsrud Great Hope drilling pad seated on the north edge of The Homestead, adjacent to the Norwegian gulag where Erling Rolfsrud's boys toiled away their high school summers.
The spectacular Four Bears casino/hotel overlooking massive man-made Lake Sakakawea will host tour participants for steaks with relatives and a final night of fun. Then an early roust Tuesday to golf The Red Mike at 9 a.m., a treeless Scottish-style Links challenge on the north bank of the mighty Missouri.
That totals 55 holes, if you count the oil well.
Then it is home again, through vast and scenic prairies, just in time for supper in Minneapolis.
Interested in joining the gang for this once-in-a-lifetime Golf Oil package? Should be able to do it for less than $500, if gas stays under $5 a gallon. (Remember, it is expensive oil that is making Bakken Shale exploration viable.) Trip includes expert, knowledgable drivers.
To sign up, consult the trailboss@swpub.com
