A hook is welcome at this new Coore-Crenshaw course

A hook is often a nefarious thing in golf, but not at Clear Creek Tahoe, a new country club outside Reno, Nev., that features a Coore-Crenshaw-designed course.

Membership at Clear Creek Tahoe includes a three-mile stretch of shoreline along the West Walker River, one of the club's three private fly-fishing ranches. It also has a private pier and moor buoys at Lake Tahoe.

"These are natural amenities," Ben Crenshaw said, when he was at the course for its grand opening recently. "They're attractions that if the members of the party don't want to play golf all day, they can do lots of other unbelievable things in this area, which has always been part of Tahoe's attraction. There's a lot of things to see and do here, and a lot of ways to recreate and they're naturally occurring amenities."

Golf is Clear Creek's centerpiece and the property was the selling point for Crenshaw and his design partner Bill Coore.

"I think the most unique thing about this golf course is where it's located," Crenshaw said. "It's basically on the downside of mountains. But encased in this is a particular piece of property that has a very easily walkable terrain where golf can naturally happen, and that just doesn't occur.

"Obviously its gorgeous and the panoramas change as you play the course, but the actual terrain, the actual pieces of land where the holes are, are places we didn't have to fight at all."

-- John Strege