Mountaintop Experience

by Victor Williams

Timilick, the latest mountain masterpiece from Johnny Miller and John Harbottle, will fully open in spring 2008.

Don’t blink, or you might miss another high-end, private golf course opening in Truckee, Calif. Or so it seems, if you look at the breakneck pace at which the bulldozers are working in Martis Valley just north of Lake Tahoe and a half hour west of Reno. During winter, celebs from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Paul McCartney have been spotted on nearby slopes, but in summer, this California version of Vail, Colo., turns all warm and fuzzy — or rough, if you hit your Titleist sideways.

A railroad burg-turned-real estate hotbed that continues to buck all industry cool-downs, Truckee seems to be the address for well-heeled second-home buyers or retiring Bay Area denizens.
With the construction flurry comes a third wave of incredible, homeowner-driven golf. The first started back in the 1970s with Northstar-at-Tahoe and Tahoe Donner; the second hit about 10 years ago with Lahontan (the first full private, high-end club with two sublime Tom Weiskopf layouts, including a killer par-3 loop), Coyote Moon (Brad Bell’s forest-and-boulder-lined masterpiece on a ridge above town), and, in 2003, its sister course Old Greenwood — a daily fee/resort beauty that marked Jack Nicklaus’ first foray into the Truckee sweepstakes. And just across Interstate 80 is the private Gray’s Crossing, a Peter Jacobsen-Jim Hardy design that gives Tahoe Mountain Resorts a sizzling trifecta of 18-hole winners. Gray’s Crossing is expected to open this summer.

Now Truckee is bracing for a fourth go-round of private course openings backed by big-name architects and multi-million dollar homesites. First up is Timilick, where Hall of Fame golfer Johnny Miller and design cohort John Harbottle are putting the final touches on a course that promises to rival the pure, secluded feel of Lahontan. After all, it’s right across Schaeffer Mill Road, named after one of the valley’s two big old-time landowners. Miller was scheduled to pay another visit in late July, with an inaugural round planned for early fall before the course opens to members next year.

“We’re in a great neighborhood for golf, with Weiskopf, Nicklaus, Jacobsen and now Johnny Miller and Harbottle,” says Timilick’s Mark Richardson. It’s a pretty good neighborhood for golf.”

That’s an understatement.

Truckee is a great address for top-tier golf, even if only lasts five months of the year, and Timilick’s brisk real estate business backs up that assertion. “We released 45 home sites in Phase I and sold them out,” says Sales Manager Tim Galvin. Phase II sales are underway, and at build-out there will be 406 homes in all on the project’s 475 acres — 218 single-family homesites and 188 duplex townhomes called the Lodges. Timilick Club memberships are available to residents as well as others outside the community. Amenities will include the Blackrock Clubhouse, with restaurant, bar and grill; swimming pool, fitness facilities and tennis courts. The golf complex will also include a golf chipping and putting green and a driving range.

Hot on Timilick’s trail is Martis Camp, another high-end project put together by the same folks who started it all with Lahontan. Taking shape in wooded groves and wildflower-soaked meadows between Lahontan and Northstar, this course might end up scoring the most buzz of all, simply because of the guy designing it: Tom Fazio.

Fazio is, without a doubt, today’s most sought-after architect, but this is only his second effort in the region; his first, Edgewood Tahoe, opened nearly 40 years ago on Lake Tahoe’s south shore, with uncle George Fazio at the helm. Now the nephew is back, bringing with him big-time momentum and a reputation for playable-yet-artistic excellence.

“It’s coming along very well,” Fazio told FG late last year, not long after his most recent Martis Camp checkup. “We had four holes grassed before winter, where we sodded. They looked like you could play them this spring.”

Like Lahontan and Timilick, Martis Camp will have its share of homesites, but they won’t impinge on whatever stirring high-altitude artistry Fazio has in store. He’s got other high-profile projects in the pipeline — Gozzer Ranch in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, for instance, and Rainbow Canyon at Lake Las Vegas — and no doubt they’ll give his considerable West Coast portfolio even more luster.
But we’re talking Truckee here, and that means the bar has been set high, very High Sierra mountain high, in fact.

Still, it seems a shame that only a very small slice of the golfing population will be able to play Timilick and Martis Camp. Membership has its privileges, and in these parts, the choices for exercising that privilege are growing as fast as the harsh mountain climate will allow. Still, here’s hoping the “rest” of us — the daily-fee, non-member contingent, will get our shot one of these days.

Even if it takes another 10 years. FG

For more information Truckee golf, check out these websites: www.timilick.com, www.martiscamp.com