King’s Walk was built following a disastrous flood in 1997, which greatly impacted the community.  Nearly 90 percent of the homes and businesses were flooded, causing the largest (pre-Katrina) forced community evacuations to take place since the Civil War. The impact to the community was so severe that federal and state leaders evaluated the worthiness of continuing the community.  Fortunately, the benefit to cost ratio came out well enough to influence their decision and appropriate the resources to rebuild the community.

The ’97 flood destroyed Lincoln Golf Course, which was the only 18 hole golf course in Grand Forks at the time. It was then that the idea arose of replacing the course with a signature course, which would certainly improve the overall community image and morale.

The opening of King’s Walk Golf Course in 2002 brought world-class golf to Grand Forks. The original flat site of over 650,000 cubic yards of earth was excavated to allow the Arnold Palmer designed golf course to roll and flow around hundreds of individual mounds, deep ravines, steep ridges, and two large lakes. Large bent grass greens are well protected and framed by beautifully sculpted bunkers, mounds, and collection areas. Tall fescue grasses add to the links style and complete this Arnold Palmer designed masterpiece.

King’s Walk has proven to be a catalyst to the post flood success of Grand Forks.  Not only in terms of bringing “big time” golf to the city and region, but it provided a boost in economic development, and created a sense of renewal, community resilience and promise toward a bright future. The exceptional quality and enjoyable playability of Mr. Palmer’s design has led to an energized golf community.