With the year’s first major now in the rearview mirror and May Day next week, it’s time to think about golfing in the Sierra Nevada this spring and summer.
Despite the record snowfall and rainfall this winter and spring, most of the courses are planning to open in their normal May window.
This year, for the first time in recent memory, fans of both skis and sticks can pursue both passions in the same day into the summer. Skiing in the morning followed by a round of golf in the afternoon makes for a delightful day.
Squaw Valley/Alpine Meadows plans to continue operating until July 4th this year—a milestone that Mammoth Mountain has reached on occasion.
That will make it very easy to ski and golf on one day, except it may be dicey to do so at the Resort and Squaw Valley course that is in the meadow of Squaw Valley. When I checked in this week, they reported about 3 feet of snow still on the ground. They were hoping to open the golf course in late June. The superintendent, because many of the holes run through the wetlands in the meadow, has limited options for fertilizer to encourage the grass to grow and green up.
Opening days at selected other courses:
- Grizzly Ranch in Portola north of Truckee will have a soft opening May 5 with its formal opening May 12.
- Edgewood at Stateline, Nevada on the shores of Lake Tahoe is targeting May 12.
- The private Clear Creek, located off Highway 50 on the Carson Valley side of Spooner Summit, is scheduled for May 5.
- The Golf Courses at Incline Village are set for May 19 for the back 9 and May 26 for the entire course.
- In Truckee, where the superintendents used snow blowers to clear the greens after the series of spring storms, Old Greenwood is scheduled for May 19 and Gray’s Crossing for May 26.
- The private Schaffer’s Mill in Truckee, open for public play on Mondays, is shooting for May 12.
- The Nakoma Resort near Portola opens this weekend.
Many of the courses are offering early season specials in May.
And, if you want to head for Central Oregon, Mt. Bachelor is open through May and there are many quality golf courses in the Bend-Sunriver-Redmond area. The storms that brought clouds to Northern California this week left 2 feet of fresh powder on the mountain. One of my favorite memories is skiing July 4 morning at the top of Mt. Bachelor. That followed a few days of skiing at historic Timberline resort on the Mt. Hood glacier where ski racing teams come to train in the summer.
In the Pacific Northwest, both the Circling Raven golf resort in Worley, Id, and the Coeur D’Alene Resort courses in Coeur D’Alene are in full operation. The weather may be a bit sketchy given the storms that have persisted in the Northwest, but the golf courses are exceptional.
By Tim Hunt