STAPLES — It’s a psychological thing.
The way Glen Hasselberg finds peace in the world is by going for walks in the woods. Those woods always seem to line golf course fairways and have prizes in the form of lost or abandoned golf balls to collect.
It’s what happens to those golf balls that makes the 76-year-old Staples resident a legend.
For the past 51 years, Hasselberg has been the head girls’ golf coach for the Staples-Motley Cardinals. He’s been the only one in school history. Since 1999, he’s also been the head boys’ coach. This spring, Hasselberg handed in his resignation. For all those years, however, he’s distributed thousands of golf balls to junior players and members of his golf teams. He’s not sure how many for sure, but the large garbage cans filled with balls in his garage always seem to be replenished.
Glen Hasselberg chips a shot on Thursday, July 24, 2025, at The Pines Golf Course at Grand View Lodge in Nisswa.
Kelly Humphrey / Brainerd Dispatch
“I like to find balls,” Hasselberg said. “Let’s just start with that. I accumulate a bunch. I also have people in Arizona and the Grand View crew that I play with are always giving me balls. The accumulation starts getting bigger and bigger.”
It’s not just golf balls. Hasselberg has handed out golf clubs and even full sets of clubs to young people, hoping to get them hooked on the game he’s been passionate about since his playing days at Staples.
“I just think it’s his passion for the game and just trying to create access points for the kids,” Brad Anderson said. “It’s just about getting as many people as possible excited for the game and creating an environment where people want to be there and compete and have fun. When you’re in a small town, you have to get as many numbers as you can for a sport like golf.”
Back on April 21, 2011, Glen Hasselberg, the former Staples-Motley head boys’ and girls’ golf coach, found the go-to spot for golf balls at The Preserve at Grand View Lodge.
Steve Kohls / Brainerd Dispatch
Anderson, a Staples graduate himself, has been on Hasselberg’s coaching staff for years. He gets to see firsthand how the small gesture of a free golf ball has turned a program into a family. From the beginning, Hasselberg connected with student-athletes.
“Glen was a young, very talented golfer himself,” Jody Hagenson said. “He was very good at sharing his knowledge of the game with our team. We had a lot of fun times. He’s a very competitive guy, so he would offer Dairy Queen if we could beat him. Back in those days, coaches could play on the course. He would try to get you in a competitive spirit by figuring out what you would shoot because he’d tell us what he was going to shoot. Then he’d give us a certain number of strokes and ask if we could beat him.”
Hagenson, known as Jody Wilson in high school, was Hasselberg’s first of four individual state champions when she captured the Class 1A state title in 1983. Years later, Hasselberg coached her twin sons and daughter.
Glen Hasselberg putts the ball on Thursday, July 24, 2025, at The Pines Golf Course at Grand View Lodge in Nisswa.
Kelly Humphrey / Brainerd Dispatch
“I’ve always kind of felt like he treats his players like family,” Hagenson said. “I just think we are very fortunate. You get to know people so well on a golf course. You have so many hours of play and practice and there is a lot of time for discussion in between and the coaches would golf with you, so you get to know them as people. It was people first and the success came from just wanting to be out there with the people.”
Humble Hasselberg was quick to credit his coaching staff for creating environments where student-athletes could succeed. And succeed they have. Along with Hagenson’s title, Mary Hasselberg scored a Class 1A individual title in 2001. The Cardinals girls’ won back-to-back state team titles in 1998 and 1999, but enjoyed the most successful year in 2000, where they won all 16 regular-season invitationals, the subsection title and the section title. At state, S-M led after the first round only to get clipped by Roseau on the final day.
For the boys, Carter White is the most recent state individual champion, claiming the 2023 Class 2A title as a sophomore. Andrew Israelson was a state champion in 2014. S-M won the state team title in 2013.
Glen Hasselberg pauses for a photo on Thursday, July 24, 2025, at The Pines Golf Course at Grand View Lodge in Nisswa.
Kelly Humphrey / Brainerd Dispatch
“I don’t know how to explain it, but part of what our program has been since Day One for me is that we’re trying to build fine young men and women,” Hasselberg said. “It’s more than just how you play golf. It’s life skills. That’s pretty high on our pecking order. We want you to be model citizens.
“Golf is an individual sport, but in reality, it’s a team sport that turns into an individual sport. I have yet to find any player on any of our teams who would prefer to go to state as an individual as opposed to a member of a team. They wanted to be a team.”
Hasselberg said it starts during the regular season. He used the invitationals to start building the team-first mentality. The van or bus rides to the golf courses, the long practices and the waits before and after tournaments created the bonds that turned into family.
Those bonds are a staple of who Hasselberg is. Go to any golf course in Minnesota and ask if anyone knows Glen Hasselberg. Chances are good you’ll find someone. A young sports reporter went to the 2002 PGA Championship at Hazeltine National Golf Club and asked former PGA player Tom Lehman who “the Grand Master” was. Lehman, fresh off playing the final round of the major tournament, talked for 15 minutes about winning a microwave at The Vintage at Staples and how he met Hasselberg, known as the Grand Master.
“Coach is one of those guys who everybody knows,” Hagenson said. “No matter where you go, he’s always got a story to tell. He’s just a bright spot in golf.”
Said Anderson: “Glen was always about the social part of it. I think he loved going to tournaments just to have that camaraderie with the coaches. There are a lot of coaches who have been around for a long time and I think he loved the social aspect of it. He loved connecting with people. It just seemed like wherever you go, when you’re with Glen, people knew him from somewhere. No matter where you go, he’s going to know somebody.”
Hasselberg is already a member of the Minnesota Golf Coaches Association Hall of Fame and the Staples-Motley Athletic Hall of Fame. He’s also a member of the Minnesota Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Hall of Fame.
“What a historic run as a coach,” Former Staples-Motley activities director Josh Lee said. “He truly built up the Staples-Motley golf program to be a state-renowned program. Our kids and community took a lot of pride in it. I don’t think that really puts to words what he’s meant to the program and community from a knowledge resource, but also giving back to the game, like collecting balls and setting them out for kids to take for free. He would give out clubs to even the youngest of players to have a chance to enjoy the game. The list goes on and on.
“We could talk about the coaching side of things from the multiple state champions and teams and all of those things, but really, what he’s given back is probably the most impressive piece of it.”
Glen Hasselberg pauses for a photo on Thursday, July 24, 2025, at The Pines Golf Course at Grand View Lodge in Nisswa.
Kelly Humphrey / Brainerd Dispatch
Maybe more impressive was the 75 he shot Thursday, July 24, playing the Lakes and Woods courses at The Pines at Grand View Lodge. The old 76-year-old still has it, but felt it was time for a new face.
“The best answer I could probably give you was it felt right,” Hasselberg said. “It’s time for somebody else to try and run with this.”
In the background of the phone conversation, his wife Becky, who has been by his side for all of those years, which included coaching five of his children and two grandchildren, said stepping down wasn’t easy because her husband created the phenomenon of Staples-Motley golf.
“51 years with a program is a long time,” Anderson said. “It’s definitely going to be different. It’s the end of an era and maybe the start of something different, but he’ll definitely be missed and there will be a void for sure. I think one of the things is he’s always that guy with hundreds of golf balls to give away to kids, handing out sets of clubs and always being that resource for people. That generosity has been pretty amazing.”
