Fritz H. Corrigan

With his family deeply impacted by the looming Depression, young Fritz Corrigan became a caddie at the Minikahda Club to help make ends meet. He caught a lucky break when Totton “Tot” Heffelfinger was suddenly in need of a caddie for the 1927 U.S. Amateur. While Tot didn’t win the tournament that week, the trophy went to a man named Bobby Jones, but the experience forged a lasting bond between player and caddie. Throughout high school and part of college, Fritz became Tot’s regular caddie. In the middle of his junior year at the University of Minnesota, however, Fritz was forced to drop out of college to help support his family. He applied for a full-time job at the Peavey Company, which was owned by the Heffelfinger family. Starting at the bottom of the ladder, Fritz Corrigan went on to become the chairman and CEO of the Peavey Company, ultimately taking the company public in 1973. Peavey later merged with ConAgra in 1982. Golf remained central throughout Fritz’s life as did the university that circumstances forced him to leave, so in 1958, he led the construction of the Evans Scholars chapter house at the University of Minnesota. It was just one of the many ways that Fritz H. Corrigan gave back to others and to the game of golf, further detailed below.

From the Minnesota Golf Association

Mr. Corrigan was an active leader on the MGA Board of Directors and was awarded the MGA Warren J. Rebholz Distinguished Service Award in 1998. Mr. Corrigan was a director of the Western Golf Association from 1957-71, serving as a vice president from 1961-65 and as a trustee of the Evans Scholars Foundation from 1966-71. He also served as a committee member of the United States Golf Association. Mr. Corrigan was a long-time member and president of the Minikahda Club in Minneapolis, where he caddied as a young man, and was a member and president of Northland Country Club in Duluth.