Women's City League History
The Women's Twin City League was formed in the summer of 1989 by a group of 4-5 women golfers who wanted the opportunity to play other great golf courses in the Twin Cities.
Ede Rice talked with the Men’s Twin City League chair and patterned the Women's league after theirs (i.e., format and scoring). It was decided to be held in May and June of each year, as a "warm up" to the regular tournament season. The first step was to gather friends from various courses, ask them to go back to their respective clubs to see if they could field a team of committed players, and then ask if the Club would agree to host the field every other year. The women who were successful in getting their clubs to agree formed the original twelve club Women's Twin City League.
The 12 original Clubs were: Edina, Hazeltine, Interlachen, Midland Hills, Minikahda, Minneapolis, Olympic, Somerset, Oak Ridge, Town & Country, Wayzata, and Woodhill. The League played six dates each summer and clubs hosted every other year.
Over the years the clubs have changed a bit: Town & Country dropped out, but Bearpath, Golden Valley, Southview and White Bear joined in which raised the number of clubs to 15. Then White Bear dropped out, but Town & Country came back in and Dellwood and Mendakota also joined to raise the number of clubs to 18. In 2018, the league welcomed North Oaks, Windsong Farm and Bracketts Crossing to make the count 21 teams. Finally, in 2022, White Bear returned to City League and Stillwater and The Royal were added to the fold. Women's Twin City League is now a true "Twin Cities" league with almost equal numbers of clubs from the East and West.
Teams have always been comprised of 3 players (since many clubs were worried they couldn't recruit more players) and we have always had a single league with clubs from both Minneapolis and St. Paul. We have always played on Fridays to avoid ladies’ league days. We used to have tee times tee off #1 and #10, but eventually settled on shotgun starts, so everyone could socialize and eat lunch together when finished.
League dues have remained minimal since the very beginning in 1989. Players pay for their own food each week (a continental breakfast and buffet lunch) which has varied from $25-$35 over the years.
The first year of play was 1990 and Edina was the champion. In 2019, Women's Twin City League marked its 30 year anniversary.
Many thanks to Ede Rice for her vision and organizational skills in getting this League started and all her hard work running it for the first 30 years!