Meet One Of The World's Only Female Golf Course Architects

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- CBS is your home for golf's biggest game of the year.

The Masters Tournament will finish on Sunday with the fitting of the green jacket.

One Minnesota woman will be watching, but she will mainly be focused on the course.

WCCO met one of the few female golf course architects in the world.

Kari Haug first picked up a club in a cow pasture in Kirkhoven, a tiny town in western Minnesota.

"I learned to play actually from my grandmother," Haug said.

Since those days, her input on the greens has been seen around five Midwestern states and a few places around the world.

"It is my happy place, for sure," she said.

Haug launched a golf course design company a decade ago. She graduated from college as a landscape architect before moving to Scotland to be able to be on par in the golf world.

"Scotland's considered the home of golf, but it also has … some really great golf courses," she said.

It's where Haug also saw courses were a part of a community.

"People ride bike to the golf course, they walk to the golf course, they take their dog for a walk on the golf course," Haug said.

She brings that passion for creating a multi-purpose space to her work, designing holes for the shorter hitter to get more women, children and seniors to play.

"I try to design the golf course for a wide range of people," she said.

Haug is also focused on the environmental sustainability of the game by growing native plants and reducing the length of fairways.

"If you don't have as much turf, you don't have as much pesticide, chemicals, water," Haug said.

She believes these details will keep the game she loves alive, and she hopes her eye for design lands her on the leaderboard.

"I'm really interested in being able to give people the opportunities that I had when I was young," she said.