Brainerd Lakes might be the most quintessential of Minnesota’s summer vacation experiences. Whether you’re playing golf, paddleboarding, dining or just relaxing at your lakeside cabin, everything is geared toward being outdoors, near or on the lakes.
“Because we’re the land of 10,000 lakes, people do all of the winter sports, but in the summertime, it’s golf, boating and fishing,” said Ashlee Ciora, owner of Women’s Golf & Travel, a Minneapolis-based company that specializes in golf trips for women. “I think Minnesota has so much to offer.”
So regularly do your activities bring you to the water’s edge that it sometimes seems as if all 10,000 lakes are concentrated in Brainerd Lakes. The setting, along with the quality of golf and accommodations, makes it an ideal destination for women looking to arrange a group golf trip.
There are numerous lodging options, but start with Grand View Lodge, which has everything a group of women golfers could want in a resort.
“I’d book a women’s group there in a heartbeat,” Ciora said.
Grand View has an abundance of elegant lodging options, depending on what your group wants. Guests can choose to stay in Grand View’s main property, which sits on the north side of Gull Lake, with its grand staircase that leads down to the sandy beach. It’s also convenient to the resort’s Glacial Waters Spa and to dining, including Cru, an intimate, French-inspired restaurant, The Preserve Smokehouse, offering authentic BBQ, and Char, a classic steakhouse. The boutique North Hotel, which has 60 rooms, is also located on the main property.
What’s wonderful about Grand View is that there are plenty of options for a group of ladies who want to spend more time together. Those include the Roy Lake cabins and villas, located 1.5 miles from the main property, or the new North Pines neighborhood, with its luxurious four- and five-bedroom private homes adjacent to The Pines Golf Course
The 27-hole Pines Course is a stiff test, a true player’s course, while The Preserve clubhouse and course are known for some of the best scenery in the state, and that’s accentuated by the layout’s elevated tees.
A golf group could find everything they wanted at Grand View to keep themselves entertained for the entirety of a long weekend, but Brainerd Lakes has so much more to offer.
Located about 12 miles north of Grand View Lodge, on the shores of Pelican Lake, Breezy Point Resort has been one of the go-to destinations for Midwesterners and Canadians for more than a century. Breezy Point has a lengthy list of lodging options, four restaurants and three golf courses.
Deacon’s Lodge is Breezy Point’s must-play course. It’s the highest-rated course in the area, at No. 2 in the Golfweek’s Best state rankings, and it’s one of the best designs in the late Arnold Palmer’s portfolio. The course, named for Palmer’s father, is exactly what one envisions for golf in the Brainerd Lakes region. It sprawls across 500 acres – nearly three times the acreage for a typical golf course – so there’s a sense of solitude as players make their way through the forest and wetlands. Palmer, who always swung for the fences, created a course with plenty of width, but also options, such as the split fairways on the second and eighth holes.
Like Breezy Point, Madden’s on Gull Lake is a timeless destination that has been drawing visitors to Brainerd for more than a century. Located at the southern end of Gull Lake, Madden’s takes full advantage of its location on the Pine Beach Peninsula, with a variety of waterfront lodging, three beaches and lots of activities geared toward getting guests out on the water, including paddleboard yoga. Or guests can relax in Madden’s lakeside spa.
Minnesotans have a famously can-do spirit, and that’s reflected in one of the area’s best courses, The Classic at Madden’s, which currently sits at No. 4 in the Golfweek’s Best state rankings.
When Madden’s decided in the 1990s to create a destination golf course, they turned to the resort’s longtime superintendent, Scott Hoffmann, to build it. Hoffmann was given a lovely piece of lakeside land with which to work. The fairways flow naturally across rolling terrain and through stands of majestic oaks, at times giving off a strong Augusta National vibe. The lakeside third hole is one of America’s great short par 4s, with multiple options and lots of potential trouble en route to the peninsula-shaped green. The 10th is an excellent risk-reward par 5, and the paw-print bunkering behind the 11th green just feels so appropriate for the setting. The Classic is a wonderful walking course, so consider springing for caddies.
There’s a similar atmosphere next door to Madden’s at Cragun’s Resort on Gull Lake. Minnesota native Tom Lehman, a major champion on the PGA Tour, had a strong influence on Cragun’s 45 holes of golf. The eponymous Lehman 18, set alongside Stephens Lake, is the resort’s championship venue. Lehman also designed The Dutch 18, which recently has undergone renovations, with the Red nine set to reopen this summer.
Also nearby in Brainerd is Kavanaugh’s Sylvan Lake Resort, which bills itself as “the smallest of Minnesota’s big resorts and the biggest of Minnesota’s small resorts.” It sits on 24 acres, with 1,200 feet of lakefront and offers a variety of lodging options for groups visiting the area.
Lost Lake Lodge, nestled between Gull Lake and Lost Lake, offers a similar boutique lodging experience, with 14 decidedly upscale cabins that are ideally suited for visiting groups. It’s centrally located in the Brainerd Lakes region for golfers booking rounds on Deacon’s Lodge to the north or The Classic at Madden’s to the south.
For groups that want a lodging experience that is, at once, elegant and rustic, consider Nature Link in Nisswa. Situated on Clark Lake, just east of Grand View Lodge, Nature Link has cabins ranging in size from one to three bedrooms, with a five-bedroom cabin set to open in 2024. This is a good option if you want to commune with nature while enjoying something approaching five-star accommodations. But it’s also in heavy demand, so book your stay far in advance.
To start planning your visit to Brainerd Lakes, check out the travel guides and itineraries at Explore Minnesota. Visit exploreminnesota.com and @exploreminnesota on Instagram, TikTok, Threads, Facebook, and YouTube.