When the Sept.
23 edition of USA Today included Genoa Lakes Golf Course among the Top 10 holes "to die for" no one was more surprised than Lou Eiguren, vice president and director of golf at the Douglas County resort.
He thinks Chris Santella,who writes golf books and wrote the newspaper review,must have come to play the course.
"A friend told me, that's a $150,000 advertisement you didn't have to pay for," says Eiguren.
But the benefits don't stop there.
To capitalize on the free publicity, the course made plaquettes of the article to post in both club houses.
It prompted Dave Hughes and Troy Browning,who are hosting a show on KTVN television called Those Golf Guys, to film a feature on the course.
It prompted the Tahoe Douglas Chamber of Commerce to name Genoa Lakes Golf Course business of the month.
The Chamber will host its Oct.
19 luncheon on site.
Best of all,"We got a tremendous amount of phone calls from people who saw the article," says Eiguren.
They've been coming consistently, up to five a day, many from Lake Tahoe residents who had no inkling that the featured course lay on their doorstep.
Eiguren will also brainstorm with its public relations consultant, Denny Hogan of Studio G in Reno, to plan how to further capitalize on the national kudos.
A campaign is in the works, code-named GLX2, that targets the younger crowd.
The 18- hole course was designed by John Harbottle III and PGA champion Peter Jacobsen.
