Incline golf course renovated

Just as the local golf season is set to get under way, a year-long renovation at a golfing hot spot in Incline Village begins this spring.

The Championship Golf Course, one of two major courses owned and run by the Lake Tahoe community, will undergo an $11 million renovation that includes the reconstruction of the Chateau, the 22,850-square-foot Championship clubhouse.

Milena Miteva, marketing director for Incline Village General Improvement District, which oversees the project, said the changes are expected to encourage more businesses and corporations to meet and golf at the Championship Course.

"It's really going to bring in more business activity into the area," said Miteva.

"It should be very attractive to corporations."

Most enticing for businesses and corporations will be the new $6.5 million clubhouse.

It includes a 4,500- squarespace featuring audio visual equipment that will be reserved for business and corporate meetings and banquets.

It also is well-suited to house weddings and parties.

The new clubhouse will replace the old Chateau clubhouse, which was demolished on April 22.

The new Chateau is slated for completion sometime in the fall of 2004.

Miteva also noted that the improvements should also be able to attract more non-business golfers to the community.

Already, the course has a base of golfers from northern California and northern Nevada, plus throughout the United States and overseas as well.

As for renovations on the golf course itself, construction is scheduled to begin May 1 and finish by June 1 of next year.

Among the improvements will be a new in-ground irrigation system, plus upgrades in the course's layout and designs while improving its practice facilities.

The improvements will make the course in compliance with specifications of the United State Golf Association.

The course will be closed through the project's completion.

Because the Championship Course will be closed for the entire 2003 golf season, the Mountain Course, Incline Village's other major golf spot, will welcome Championship's usual customers.

Miteva said while integrating the golfers into one course might be difficult, they are prepared to make the best of the situation.

"The Mountain Golf Course will be open to all golfers during that period of time," Miteva said.

"I feel we'll have a high demand (at the Mountain Course).

We'll probably send some of our customers to other neighboring golf courses and hopefully we'll get them back when the Championship Course is reopened."

Opened in 1964, the Championship Course was designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr.

The current renovation project is one of several that has been undertaken on the course since its inception.