Harold Bend came to Minnesota with his parents in 1878 from Staten Island, N.Y. As a young man, he turned to golf after forsaking rowing (boating), a fashionable activity of the era. After joining St. Paul’s Town & Country Club, Bend soon made his mark as one of Minnesota’s top amateur golfers by winning the second MGA Amateur Championship in 1902, establishing a new course record in the process. He would win the State Amateur again in 1904, and later that year after an arduous qualifying process, Bend would win five straight matches to claim the area’s first regional championship, the Trans-Mississippi. He would win the MGA’s second annual Senior Amateur Championship in 1923 (and repeat in 1924), becoming the first Minnesota golfer to win both the MGA Amateur and Senior Amateur championships.
