Two of a Kind
“I guess you could say it’s a very stable position at a very stable club,” says Mike Schultz, the current PGA head professional. “I think it’s because there’s one focus, and it’s golf and championship golf. That’s what I’m dedicated to, so it worked out really well for both of us.”
Heffelfinger, the former president of the United States Golf Association, wanted to create a club that would host major championships while providing a pure golf experience for its members.
“There was nothing like it, working at Hazeltine,” says Shultz’s predecessor, Don Waryan. “We worked so hard (to attract majors), but it was worth it. The players were so good. And bringing a major to town wasn’t easy, but once we got going, it did so much for the club that people began to love that part of it.”
Today, about 200 of Hazeltine’s 330 members maintain single-digit handicaps on a course that will play host to its seventh major championship when the 91st PGA
IN ITS 47 YEARS, HAZELTINE NATIONAL GOLF CLUB HAS HAD ONLY TWO PGA head professionals helping oversee the only two goals that principal founder Totton P. Heffelfinger had in mind when the club was established in 1962.
Hazeltine National Golf Club has employed only two PGA head professionals in club history, Don Waryan and Mike Schultz
By Mark Craig
Don Waryan (pictured left with the USGA’s Joe Dey and Hazeltine founder Totton Heffelfinger) served as Hazeltine National Golf Club’s PGA head professional from 1962, when the facility opened, until 1976.
Championship begins on Aug. 13.
In other words, it appears both goals are being met as the club heads toward the end of its first half-century.
Helping guide the way has been Schultz, the PGA head professional since 1976, and the man he succeeded, Don Waryan, the original PGA head professional at Hazeltine National Golf Club.
Waryan, now 75 and retired, belongs to one of Minnesota’s great golfing families. One of four golfing Waryan brothers, Don played on championship teams at Edison High in Minneapolis and went to the University of Minnesota after serving in the Navy during World War II.
Don’s late brother, Bill, was a former two-time Minnesota State Open champion and one-time State Amateur winner. The two of them were drawn to the game as young boys growing up in Minneapolis. Many a Monday they would ride their bikes to Francis A. Gross Golf Course, a Minneapolis city-owned facility, just to watch the adults play golf. Sometimes, the Waryan boys would get to rake the bunkers in exchange for greens fees.
Don Waryan was the PGA head professional at Woodhill Country Club in nearby Wayzata, Minn., when Heffelfinger hired him in 1962 to assume the same position at Hazeltine.
“Everyone in my age group looked up to Don,” Schultz says. “He was one of the elite club professionals. Hugely respected.”
Waryan was named the state’s top professional twice. He won three consecutive state PGA titles from 1958–60, played in the 1958 U.S. Open at Southern Hills, served as national vice president of The PGA of America from 1961–63 and spent many years as the Minnesota PGA