Cragun’s CRMC Championship continues to be successful

By Carrie Scarfino

This year’s 2024 CRMC Championship was truly incredible. Building on the success of the 2023 event, which won tournament of the year, the CRMC Championship team knew they had to raise their game as PGA TOUR Latinoamérica and PGA TOUR Canada merged to form PGA TOUR Americas.

In March 2024, the inaugural PGA TOUR

Americas commenced with 16 events spanning across Latin America, Canada and Cragun’s Legacy Courses, the only United States stop on the tour. PGA TOUR Americas is now a singular, competitive pathway tour leading to the Korn Ferry Tour. Players from two continents and eight countries competed for the chance to earn their way onto the Korn Ferry Tour and ultimately the PGA TOUR.

Cragun’s Legacy Courses was the final full-field stop before the PGA TOUR Americas Fortinet Cup Championship in Calgary. The CRMC Championship was played on the 7,059 yard, Par 70, Blue and White nines of the resort’s Dutch 27 championship golf course, renovated by PGA TOUR Pro Tom Lehman.

This year, the top pointsearner in the Fortinet Cup earns membership into the Korn Ferry Tour for 2025, along with a $40,500 bonus. Players who earn Korn Ferry Tour cards (up to 15) through the PGA TOUR Americas season will be guaranteed a spot in the Final Stage of PGA TOUR Q-School presented by Korn Ferry, post-PGA TOUR Americas season, for a chance to earn PGA TOUR membership.

Entering its third year, the CRMC Championship saw tournament director and Cragun’s Legacy Courses Director of Golf Jack Wawro feel the pressure to elevate this year’s event beyond last year’s.

“The difference maker in 2024 was how much the Brainerd lakes community has embraced this annual event. Our sponsors, volunteers, and spectators have rallied to make this a “must attend” event in our area. It is so much fun to see everyone enjoying the event and supporting our charities and the professionals competing for the championship,” Wawro said.

Returning title sponsor, Cuyuna Regional Medical Center, presenting sponsor Gertens, pro-am and ticket event sponsor Northern Pacific Center, Saturday Night Jam sponsor Clow Stamping Company, and volunteer sponsor BLAEDC were all in attendance. New sponsors such as Wolf River goes against the negative narrative that if you believe our small towns are dying, trying to find a home to buy — good luck,” Winchester said.

Electric, BlazeAir and Ernie’s on Gull also contributed significantly.

This year’s event also featured the Babinski Foundation pet adoption on Thursday, Military Day on Friday offering the first 250 military members free access to the VIP area, Ladies Night on Friday with Anderson Daniels, a rock concert on Saturday with The Hype, a Sunday breakfast buffet benefitting Smiles for Jake, a championship trophy presentation and a donation check to the CRMC Foundation.

The PGA TOUR Americas event will be back in 2025.

To become a 2025 sponsor, please contact Jack Wawro at jwawro@craguns.com.

For Winchester, the pandemic didn’t start the migration to smaller communities in the state, it just brought it to light.

“It didn’t like reinvigorate us, it just shone the light on the already high demand for our rural communities,” Winchester said.

He noted it did add to the rising home values as demand for houses increased. More employers embraced the option to work from home. Those are hard numbers to quantify, but anecdotally individuals moved up early prior to retirement. Others

Ben Winchester, rural sociologist

made seasonal homes their full-time residence and instead of driving to the lake when they could, they now commute back to the Twin Cities for certain days and spend the rest of their time at home in the lakes area.

On the other hand, Winchester said it made work and home are disconnected.

“They’re decoupling, and you don’t always live where you work. In fact, just 51% of Minnesotans now work in the county that they live in. And that’s been a long-standing trend downward,” he said.

“So when we think about how people do live, shop, play, recreate, it’s in the region and Brainerd can be a hub of that region. A lot of jobs have migrated to these regional centers. But again, in our smallest towns, you’ve got people coming in. And even in the small towns, you have people commuting into those then people in town commuting out. So there’s this really big flow of people moving all around regions right now.”

Perhaps surprisingly, Winchester said the majority of movers to rural communities are not from there.

Whether they stay, add their children to the school district, add to the community’s social fabric, pay taxes and fill open jobs or open new businesses

— in other words add to the growth of the local economy — can hang on how welcoming the community is to newcomers. It’s not a matter of creating the jobs because the jobs are here, Winchester said.

“Instead of industrial recruitment, we need to supplement it with residential recruitment. … We need to find ways to welcome new residents in,” Winchester said, adding 60% of new residents don’t join the community because of a job offer. Instead they are moving for other reasons, he said, perhaps a slower pace of life, safety, security and a lower cost for housing.

Winchester said people move for quality of life and a job was not even on the top 10 list of reasons to relocate.