Marathon golfer tees off at 40 courses in one day

RENO, Nev. - An unexpected visit with a Nevada highway patrolman wasn't enough to derail Don "Snoshu" Thompson's golfing marathon, driving 40 tee shots at 40 different courses in less than 12 hours.

"I've played golf in five continents and 12 countries. I hit a golf ball off the Great Wall in China. But I don't think you could do this anywhere else in the world," Thompson said Wednesday evening.

Thompson, 68, had planned to tee off at 43 golf courses in the Reno-Lake Tahoe area in an effort to showcase the region as an up and coming golfing destination with a wide variety of mountain, desert and swamp courses.

He ended up with 40 for the day Wednesday after three private clubs on his list wouldn't allow him on the tee.

Aside from a long drive-up line at a McDonald's in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., the biggest threat to success was the Nevada patrolman who stopped him near Minden, Nev.

"I looked up and the light was red and I was half through the intersection," said Thompson, who had been distracted by his melting ice-cream cone.

"The patrolman pulls me over and asks me, 'What are you doing?'

"I told him I was trying to tee off at 42 courses in one day and he says, 'Isn't it supposed to be 43?' He had heard it on the news. He told me to be careful."

Thompson, a local golf and skiing writer who owns a tavern in Reno, planned the event with city officials determined to bolster their tourism base as legalized gambling spreads elsewhere.

"In the last two or three years there have probably been 10 new golf courses open," said Beverly Loranger, spokeswoman for the Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority.

"It has been kind of a quiet little secret people don't know about," she said.

For his last stunt, "Snoshu" skiied at 15 area resorts in the same day.

"The Guinness Book of World Records turned me down when I did 15 ski lifts in one day, but I'm going to try again," Thompson said before he teed off at Red Hawk Golf Course in Spanish Springs, northeast of Reno, at 6:05 a.m.

"See you later men," Thompson yelled to a dozen golfers on the first tee at Brookside Municipal Golf Course after he drove the ball into the left rough, turned on his heels and jogged back to his car shortly after sunrise.

The tight schedule - 401 miles over three mountain passes to hit all 40 courses in 12 hours - didn't allow time for him to pick up his balls.

"It's his shag bag - driving range balls he's hitting. Are you kidding?" said Randi Thompson, 37, his daughter who was along for the ride. "My dad wouldn't leave a good ball behind. He's too conservative."

The left-hander literally ran from idling car to tee and back.

He already was running a few minutes behind by the time he got to Brookside Municipal Golf Course for his 6:30 a.m. slot. But he raced off to nearby Rosewood Golf Course and shaved off a few minutes despite heeding a request from a sprinting television cameraman to reenact his swing.

"Hurry," Thompson told the photographer and ran back to his car.

How fast were they driving?

"Too fast," Randi Thompson said.

"We're not going to break any laws," the elder Thompson said as they took off again.

He completed the day by teeing off at his final destination, Washoe Municipal Golf Course, 22 minutes ahead of his 5:55 p.m. tee time.

Three private courses - Lahonton, Glenbrook and Montreaux - wouldn't let him tee off due to their exclusive policies but Thompson said he took no offense.

Reno's location at the base of the Sierra Nevada and the edge of the Great Basin accounts for wide variety of geography encountered in the courses Thompson targeted within one hour of the city of 143,000.

They ranged from the 6,000-foot mountain courses along Lake Tahoe, to narrow links layouts in the swamps of Washoe Valley to the southeast and the desert courses to the north and east where temperatures surpassed 100 degrees this week.

They also ranged widely in price from $150 at Edgewood Golf Course at Stateline, Nev., to just $9 for nine holes at Brookside municipal next to the Reno-Tahoe International Airport.

"Palm Springs has a lot of courses but they are all desert courses," Thompson said. "You go to Myrtle Beach and there's tons of courses but it is all swamp courses."

"Here, if it's cold we go play in the desert. If it's hot, we got to the mountains."

His favorite golf course?

"The one I am on at the time."

archive