9 Reasons to Plan Your Next Golf Trip to Lake Tahoe
thin air gives you an honest 10% boost in yardage (a 150-yard shot at sea level goes 165, a 270-yard drive goes 300, etc.) at all the courses around Tahoe and Truckee, and somewhere between 5-7% at the slightly lower Reno and Graeagle. But it’s not just the yardage that’s
addicting. It’s the trajectory and speed that your ball flies off the clubface, giving you a pro-for-a-round experi- ence. Everything just takes off. And of course, it’s literally a blast to tee off with a driver. Launching a tee ball with punter hang time and watching it parachute down against forest-filled mountains is one of the most beautiful shots you can hit in golf. And you get that at every course in Tahoe, multiple times a round. The other awesome thing about Tahoe golf? Drivable par 4s are a lot more common, thanks to the altitude boost. And who here doesn’t love drivable par 4s? Or reach- able par 5s, for that matter. You don’t go on vacation to lay up!
year-round golf choices out West, it’s easy to discount a region where it’s a challenge to play golf before May (and even then, the conditioning is a little scruffy while the turf recovers from winter). But Lake Tahoe sure does make up for lost time with peak weather and conditioning from June through September. It’s tough to beat the setting and
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intrigue of mountain golf, with greens tenuously tucked away into corners of the forest or framed by massive pines doubling as arena football uprights, and natural brooks and creeks inter- secting holes instead of giant man- made irrigation ponds. Rock outcrop- pings and single pines in the fairway are so much more interesting to play around than another bunker. And
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NCGA.ORG / SUMMER 2014
Mountain Golf Six Months a Year is Bet- ter Than No Mountain Golf at All. With so many truly great
Clear Creek Tahoe is a rare mountain course designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw outside Carson City, Nev. Opened in 2008, the private club is on par with Coore-Crenshaw’s other West Coast course, nationally acclaimed Bandon Trails.
expansive views through valleys, plus peeks at Lake Tahoe—or in Edge- wood’s case, playing right along the shoreline—give any region a run for its money in terms of aesthetics and memorability.
don Dunes fanatic. I’ve made annual pilgrimages every March with my dad since 2000. We can’t get enough of the place. So I was stoked to score a round at the private Clear Creek Tahoe outside Carson City, Nev., which was created by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw—the team that designed Bandon Trails. Clear Creek Tahoe is even better
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than Bandon Trails. For those who have played
Golfweek’s 25th Best Modern Course in the Country, imagine dropping Bandon Trails into the middle of the Sierra. Coore and Crenshaw don’t do mountain courses. Coore hiked the land and mulled the feasibility of building a walkable course for 10 days,
To Play the Best Bill Coore-Ben Crenshaw Course on the West Coast. I am a full-fledged Ban-
weighing whether the property was up to the team’s high standards. Coore and Crenshaw ultimately
agreed to the project, and discovered their own, unique course, a free-flowing layout that gently unfolds like a hiking trail, revealing endless views through the Carson Valley while also highlighting the surrounding jagged mountain peaks via its dramatic routing. At times Clear Creek gives a wink to Bandon Trails (Nos. 11 and 12 at both courses aren’t twins, but they certainly look related), but it definitely has its own mountain personality, complete with awesome rock formations and holes that agilely weave through the forest. The 508-yard fourth hole is particularly fun, as you don’t even need a driver to reach the demonstratively downhill par 4 with a short iron approach. Clear Creek has all the artistic fixings
that you would expect from a Coore- Crenshaw design: no rough, rumpled and wavy greens to test your short game, those unmistakable shaggy bunkers, and generous fairways that invite you into the hole. (And as hard as I tried, I did not lose a ball. The forest is also incred- ibly playable off the fairway.) Coore and Crenshaw also brought
PHOTO: ROD HANNA
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