Staying the Course

The 18th hole at Old Greenwood rises softly up a hillside, with breathtaking views of Mount Pluto behind it. The fairway climbs past lavish mountain homes to a picturesque green in front of a spectacular clubhouse.

But right now, the 18th itself is a morass of loose dirt, trees and irrigation pipe. The splendor is all in Jack Nicklaus’ mind -- and in the notebooks of his designers on this arid hillside in the Sierra Nevadas, just a few elevation-aided tee shots from Lake Tahoe.

“I really enjoy this part of the process,” said Nicklaus, who has parlayed his peerless golfing career into a thriving course-design business. “Designing is really just common sense. You apply what you know to what you see out here, and you try to make something that people can enjoy.”

Nicklaus pours most of his passion for golf these days into designing courses, not playing them. When it opens next July, his latest venture -- located east of Truckee, a thriving ski town 30 minutes west of Reno -- will be just the second public course designed by the Golden Bear in the Golden State.

Old Greenwood will be a luxury development featuring $700,000 lots, condominiums and elaborate recreation facilities, but it’s centered on the course under construction for Nicklaus’ eponymous design company, which has created 260 courses open for play in 27 countries at last count.

Nicklaus spends varying degrees of personal time on almost every one of his company’s ventures. Nicklaus Design’s $1.8-million contract at Old Greenwood requires the Golden Bear to make at least six trips to the site, both for course engineering and general glad-handing.

The 63-year-old did a bit of everything on a recent trip to Truckee, where he surveyed the site of Old Greenwood for the second time.

“I’m a busy guy, but that’s all right,” Nicklaus said. “I enjoy that.”

Though younger men might shrink from the challenge, it was a fairly typical Monday for Nicklaus, who shot a 69 in the final round of the U.S. Senior Open last Sunday before flying to his vacation home in Vail, Colo., on his private jet. He woke up in Colorado, and after watching a couple of hours of Wimbledon tennis, he flew to Tahoe.

After rolling up to Old Greenwood in a tan sport utility vehicle, Nicklaus stepped into the back of a large pickup truck. In addition to a handful of developers, engineers and a stray kid or two, he was joined by Jim Lipe, Nicklaus Design’s top mind, and Chris Rule, the on-site manager of the project.

Nicklaus’ name and presence probably are even more important than his personal design input, and he leaves much of the nuts-and-bolts work to his employees. But Nicklaus has plenty of thoughts on the subject that has become another passion ever since he won the last of his 18 major titles at the 1986 Masters.

“One thing you learn is that you shouldn’t ever design a golf hole for a tree,” Nicklaus said, drawing chuckles from his team. “A group of trees, that’s fine. But if you lose that one tree, you’re dead meat.”

Dodging bulldozers and cranes working amid the aging pines, the truck rolled out to the first tee, where Nicklaus chats with Rule -- a former Ohio State golfer who became a course designer, just like his boss. They talk about the position of the back tees and the width of the fairway.

At the second hole, Nicklaus engages Lipe and Rule in an animated discussion about the difficulty of the long, rolling fairway on the par five. In a theme that becomes clear over the rest of the course, Nicklaus proves to be a staunch advocate for the average golfer.

“Will that be too easy?” Rule wondered about one suggestion.

“If you’re going to make this a public golf course, people have got to be able to get to where they want to go,” Nicklaus said. “I’m trying to get the weekend guy to have it a little bit easier. That’s what they asked me to do.”

Case in point: On the third green, which is a depression in the bare dirt outlined in spray paint at this point, Nicklaus lobbied for a wider, flatter surface. Lipe and Rule liked their design, but they both made appropriate notes in their thick binders featuring detailed topographical drawings and numerical charts of every detail.

“It’s never a question of who wins [the arguments]. It’s just by how much,” said Blake Riva, a partner in the development company building Old Greenwood.

On the sixth hole, Nicklaus paused in the center of a gaping dirt hole lined with 100 yards of plastic sheeting. Soon, the hole would be filled with water and trout, ready to menace players.

“Bet I spend a little more time in here,” Nicklaus said.

Nicklaus is relentlessly self-deprecating about his own game these days. He hasn’t won on the Champions Tour since 1996, and he missed the cut in all four PGA events he played this year, including an ignominious 18-over in the first two rounds of the Masters.

“I stopped playing golf a long time ago,” he told two fans before his drive onto the course. “I’m not too good at that anymore.”

Old Greenwood is built on a remarkably flat plateau in the middle of sharply peaked mountains in every direction. It was once the site of a Chinese encampment during the great migration to California; a few miles away is the spot where the ill-fated Donner Party became trapped.

Nicklaus worked through lunch, munching on a sandwich and bemoaning his intolerance for dairy products and melons. After examining the first few holes of the back nine, the party veers south to the gorgeous final three holes of the course.

Mount Pluto, looming to the south, is the home of the Northstar ski resort also owned by the same development company building Old Greenwood. Even Nicklaus is impressed by the beauty of the peaks, which are still dusted with snow.

“I’m glad we’re taking advantage of this spot,” Nicklaus said. “It’s starting to look like a golf course out there.”

On the 18th tee, the fate of a few limbs on a single tree was intensely discussed. Again, Nicklaus’ suggestion prevailed.