Genoa Lakes a wee bit of British Open feel near the Sierra

July 14, 4:35 PMGolf Travel ExaminerVic Williams

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No. 18 at Genoa Lakes' original Lakes Course is one of Nevada's finest finishing holes.

Hard to believe it’s been 15 years since Genoa Lakes Golf Club opened on a fertile, idyllic slice of high desert land near Minden, Nev., a scenic one-hour eastern Sierra drive south of Reno and only 25 minutes from Lake Tahoe’s south shore hotel-casinos. But it’s the truth. It’s also the truth that the semi-private club — which added the erstwhile Sierra Nevada Golf Course, now known as the Genoa Lakes Resort Course, to its arsenal a few years ago — just keeps finding ways to improve.

This year it’s the original Lakes course’s conditioning that gets your attention; though there’s less emphasis on blade-by-blade manicured perfection and more on a solid overall tee to green (emphasis on “green”) experience, the result is a brand of parkland-meets-desert-meets-links playability that’s pretty much unique to the Reno-Tahoe area.

Designers John Harbottle and Peter Jacobsen — who oversaw a well-wrought redesign as the century turned — didn’t really build the course; they simply conjured it from the land as whole cloth, routing it between cottonwood groves, through reedy wetlands and along the Carson River to create one of northern Nevada’s most sublime golf experiences. It features a magnificent natural setting with water on 14 holes and a breathtaking Sierra Nevada mountain backdrop. Even a guy named Tiger Woods was impressed; after playing the course the year before he turned pro way back in 1996, he called it “a great challenge that forces you to use every club in the bag.”

Standout holes include No. 3, a mid-length par 4 with a peninsula green (it’s a completely different, and much improved, hole from the quirky original); No. 9, the course’s only full-on “desert links” hole, a downhill 5-par routed through sage and fescue with a power-slot fairway that’s a big hitter’s delight; No. 11, a drivable 4-par riddled with pot bunkers; and the Carson River-hugging stretch of holes 12-14, culminating with a 200-yard 3-par placed beautifully in a grove of old-growth cottonwoods. Its par-4 18th could be the best finishing hole in Nevada, with a tee shot over a large lake that also guards the entire left side of the fairway, with fescue-coiffed mounds up the right.

Genoa Lakes’ handsome, classically styled 13,272 square-foot building houses a pro shop, a 19th hole lounge and outdoor veranda overlooking No. 18 green, locker room facilities, as well as cart barn and administrative offices. The golf shop opens up toward the 19th hole, which has a sports-bar ambience complete with 52-inch plasma-screen TV and four smaller TVs. There’s individual speakers at each table so guests can listen to a particular game or sporting event while enjoying andipasto, hors d’oeuvres and other bar food. It’s a great gathering place for golfers, and if they’d like to stick around for dinner, they can head across the parking lot to the Supper Club in the “old” clubhouse, which has been remodeled for expanded use of the restaurant and formal ballroom facilities including special events, weddings and receptions, banquets and meetings. The bar’s windows offer stunning views of the golf course and the Sierra Nevada’s Carson Range.

If ever the oft-used “member for a day” moniker fit a Northern Nevada destination course, it does here. Add in its John Harbottle III-Johnny Miller sister course just up the road, an even more of a wide-open links-style circuit complete with western-themed clubhouse, and you’ve got the makings of a 36-hole mini-trip to match anything in the region.

For more information: www.genoalakes.com | 775.782.4653

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