{"id":1159,"date":"2010-03-12T15:43:34","date_gmt":"2010-03-12T22:43:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jeffwallach.com\/?p=1159"},"modified":"2011-04-21T15:02:54","modified_gmt":"2011-04-21T22:02:54","slug":"hitting-the-mother-lode-golfing-reno-tahoe-and-the-high-sierras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jeffwallach\/golf\/1159\/hitting-the-mother-lode-golfing-reno-tahoe-and-the-high-sierras","title":{"rendered":"Hitting the Mother Lode: Golfing Reno, Tahoe, and the High Sierras"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Edgewood<\/p><\/div>\n

All photos by Rod Hanna.<\/p>\n

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If you think miners were busy hauling ore out of the ground in the border area between California and Nevada in the 19th<\/sup> century, just try harnessing the vein of great golf courses (45 within a 90-minute drive) that have sprung up a hundred years later.\u00a0 Get a fast car, a lot of drinking water, and a passel of golf balls for a thrilling yee-haw road trip covering the best layouts this wild western locale around Reno, Carson City, Lake Tahoe, and Truckee has to offer.<\/p>\n

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LakeRidge<\/p><\/div>\n

Although there are as many ways to route this trip as there are ways to make double bogey, most visitors fly into Reno, which bills itself as the biggest little city in the world.\u00a0 Reno is Vegas without the crowds; instead of faux European palaces you\u2019ve got a backdrop of snow-covered mountains.\u00a0 Two solid golf venues lie within an easy strike of downtown.\u00a0 LakeRidge Golf Course<\/strong>, designed by Robert Trent Jones, offers a classically styled parkland layout that plays to 6,715 well-manicured yards and a par of 71.\u00a0 The fifteenth hole\u2019s island green, 239 yards away from and seemingly as far below the elevated tee, rivals the famous Coeur D\u2019Alene Resort\u2019s most famous hole.\u00a0 LakeRidge also has seventeen others worth playing among mature trees and housing developments from many different decades.<\/p>\n

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Red Hawk<\/p><\/div>\n

On the outskirts of Reno, set in statuesque foothills, lies Red Hawk Golf Club<\/strong>, designed by RTJ Jr.\u00a0 This muscular, modern design of 7,127 yards features nearly as many lakes as Minnesota, and about 974,357 bunkers\u2014many of which lurk greenside and offer impossible downhill lies.\u00a0 Four sets of tees called Hawk, Falcon, Heron, and Swan let you decide whether to be a predator or a sitting duck.\u00a0 Red Hawk finishes strongly with a 241-yard par three over water and an eighteenth hole requiring negotiation around wetlands and cottonwoods.<\/p>\n

Southeast of Reno, along a looping arc to Carson City, the 7,218-yard Arnold Palmer-designed Dayton Valley Golf Club <\/strong>awaits.\u00a0 This great walking course has it all: pot bunkers, free-form bunkers, wind, OB, thick grasses, and liquid hazards on ten holes.\u00a0 The par threes, especially, may require snorkeling gear as the greens are mostly surrounded by water.\u00a0 In case you have a really good day here, keep in mind that Dayton Valley has been a TOUR qualifying site for 12 years, the longest of any golf course.\u00a0 The 15,000 sq. ft. clubhouse offers fine grub and views as expansive as the feeling of making birdies.<\/p>\n

A detour south from Carson City, into the wide, flat valley east of Lake Tahoe, leads to Genoa, Nevada\u2019s oldest town.\u00a0 Genoa Lakes Golf Club<\/strong> offers play on two courses.\u00a0 The Peter Jacobsen-designed Lakes Course stretches to 7,263 yards from the tips.\u00a0 Although a trophy housing development has reared its head, the layout still feels miles from nowhere.\u00a0 The jagged wall of the Sierras fills the view on one side, and the desert valley unfurls toward infinity in the opposite direction.\u00a0 Several short par fours offer tantalizing risk-reward ratios and a fine time.\u00a0 Wind and altitude can combine to make club selection a wild guess\u2014as when I hit an eight iron 190 yards, causing me to scream, \u201cI da man!\u201d<\/p>\n

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Genoa Lakes, Lake Course<\/p><\/div>\n

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Genoa Lakes, Resort Course<\/p><\/div>\n

Just up the road is Genoa Lakes Golf Club\u2019s Resort Course, a thoughtful Johnny Miller\/John Harbottle design that maximizes at 7,358 yards and a hellacious 149 slope.\u00a0 The greens are brutal on this slopeside course: slow but with gigundo breaks.\u00a0 Who wouldn\u2019t love number seventeen, a 188-yarder over a rock-lined lake and playing to a peninsula green with the Sierras providing a gallery behind it?\u00a0 The saddles that serve as bar stools in the lounge provide the perfect place to end your day.<\/p>\n

By heading in a generally southwesterly direction from Genoa, prospecting golfers will eventually reach Lake Tahoe, 39 million gallons of the clearest, bluest water you\u2019ll do well not to swim in if you fear shrinkage.\u00a0 They say you can see a golf ball 75 feet below the surface of the lake\u2014 and if you do, it\u2019s probably one of mine.<\/p>\n

A number of courses are scattered along and close to the lake, but none is nicer than Edgewood Tahoe<\/strong>, which alights on most everyone\u2019s \u2018Best\u2019 list.\u00a0 Designed by George Fazio in 1968, and touched up by his nephew Tom since, Edgewood provides a sublime journey through meadows and pine forests.\u00a0 Its generous greens are slicker than a certain former president (actually, any one will do), and its prestige has been enhanced by the entertainers and athletes who partake in the American Century Championship\u00a0here each year.\u00a0 Edgewood finishes with three Lakeside holes that are more startling than difficult\u2014though they may come too late in the round to salvage your score.\u00a0 The course plays a monstrous 7,445 from the back, and encompasses all sorts of hazards, including trees that stand in the middle of fairways or guard narrow entrances to the greens.<\/p>\n

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Incline Village<\/p><\/div>\n

Further north, Lake Tahoe is also home to The Championship Course at Incline Village<\/strong>, a Jones Sr. routing clinging to the mountains.\u00a0 The 6,931-yard romp features bunkered greens and lateral water on nearly every hole.\u00a0 And the 6,500-ft elevation may make club selection about as exact a science as astrology.\u00a0 A roaring mountain stream reappears often throughout your round here\u2014like on the sixth hole, where it shows up twice; and the sixteenth, where it runs the entire length of the fairway before cutting across and forcing a carry to the tri-bunkered green.<\/p>\n

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Squaw Creek<\/p><\/div>\n

Westward and away from the lake lies RTJ Jr.\u2019s Resort at Squaw Creek<\/strong>, a course that exhibits mountain characteristics although it lies in a high wetlands valley between ski peaks.\u00a0 Sidehill lies, forced carries, and sneaky greens characterize the well-planned 6,931-yard par-71 venue.\u00a0 A number of fairways seem to float above marsh grasses and ponds beneath the mountain summits.\u00a0 Highlights here include the dramatic 484-yard par four conclusion, requiring precise navigation over and around wetlands, lake, and sand.<\/p>\n

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Coyote Moon<\/p><\/div>\n

Just west of the historic and fun-to-say town of Truckee, former PGA TOUR player Brad Bell designed Coyote Moon Golf Course<\/strong> amid 250 secluded acres of rolling hills, rollicking elevation changes, towering Ponderosa pines, granite bluffs and outcroppings, and wildflowers, with nary a mansion (or even a shack) to spoil the pristine feeling.\u00a0 The well-crafted course is intersected numerous times by Trout Creek, which may be renamed Titleist Creek following my recent visit.\u00a0 The thirteenth hole here, a 227-yard par three that drops more than 200 feet in elevation, will play with your mind and your club selection but also provide the elation of watching your ball stay airborne for what seems like weeks.<\/p>\n

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Old Greenwood<\/p><\/div>\n

One of the newer ripples in Lake Tahoe area golf is Old Greenwood<\/strong>, a Jack Nicklaus layout also close to Truckee.\u00a0 Particularly memorable are two par fives stretching to more than 600 yards\u2014unless you shank your tee shot, in which case you\u2019ll try to forget them.\u00a0 The course tops out at a massive 7,528 yards that curl through ponderosa pines, blue sagebrush and trout-filled lakes.\u00a0 Old Greenwood was named for Caleb Greenwood, a mountain man who, when in his eighties, led hundreds of immigrants across the Sierra Mountains into California back in the 19th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 You might long for a guide of your own on this rugged track.\u00a0 The course is the center of a resort recreation community close to world-class skiing, dining, shopping, entertainment, and the wilderness areas of North Lake Tahoe.<\/p>\n

Circling back north from Lake Tahoe, and about an hour northwest of Reno, the Graeagle resort area would make any cowboy or rancher feel right at home.\u00a0 This spacious high-desert region consists of open meadows and Ponderosa pine forests, clear streams and sparkling peaks.\u00a0 It\u2019s also got a couple of great golf tracks.\u00a0 The Golf Club at Whitehawk Ranch<\/strong>\u2014the best among them\u2014was designed by Dick Bailey, who created a collection of holes full of strategy, character, and enchantment.\u00a0 Trees provide vertical hazards in case the kind on the ground aren\u2019t enough.\u00a0 The course plays to 6,927 yards, all of them good.\u00a0 Greens here tend to feature amphitheater-like ridges\/collection areas that work well and define the architect\u2019s unique and well-considered style.\u00a0 Wildflowers bloom in the meadows, and a night at the Lodge at Whitehawk Ranch awaits apr\u00e8s golf.<\/p>\n

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Whitehawk Ranch<\/p><\/div>\n

For Further Info:<\/strong><\/p>\n