Bruce Stasch was interviewed by Esme Murphy on the WCCO-TV Sunday Morning News Show.  Appearing on the same show with Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and Tarryl Clark, candidate for the Sixth District Congressional race, Stasch talked up the Hacker's Guide and the Top 5 courses in Minnesota. 

We always like it when a golf course mentions the Hacker's Guide and Valley High Golf Club in Houston, Minnesota has been cited by the La Crosse Tribune for its Hacker's Guide award.  According to their General Manager Bob "Izzy" Isabell:

"We received a nice award for 2009 from the ‘Minnesota and Western Wisconsin Hacker's Guide,'" Isbell said.

"In two years, people from the magazine played every 18-hole course in Minnesota and some in western Wisconsin. In all, it was 283 courses," Isbell said. "We were rated in the top 20 for hospitality and value for your dollar, and our overall rating was in the top 25."

We got the priviledge to be a guest on the Golf Smarter podcast, which is the most-listened to independent podcast on the Internet.  Host Fred Greene is a great person to talk to and as a fellow podcaster, he really understands podcasting.  Listen to a six minute segment from the interview.  If you want to hear the entire interview, you'll have to subscribe.  If you enjoy golf, its a great deal for a new podcast every week.

Okay, not exactly, but it's amazing what you can find on the Internet when you do a little digging.  Right there in between the "Guide to Great Lakes Fishes" and "Historic Movie Theatres of Wisconsin", the reference librarian at the Winding Rivers Library System in La Crosse, Wisconsin cited the Hacker's Guide to Minnesota & Western Wisconsin Golf Courses as a book that librarians should consider (go library science grads!!).

The "Bobbie's Corner" page run by Bobbie Cowgill,  said this "Stash takes away a lot of the guesswork and fear that players have about playing new courses.  He includes ratings from people who have actually played these courses." 

Okay, so she doesn't spell my name right (it's Stasch not Stash), but she mentions the book and anyone that does that goes to the head of the line in my book.

It seem to take forever to find this, but the North News feature that was run the first week in May in the North News community newspaper is now on their website. The article and all its glory is there, but you miss the stunning photo (okay, maybe not) of Bruce Stasch in his Team Hacker gear.  Give it a read and tell us what you think.

The Houston County News in La Crescent, Minnesota, the "voice" of southeastern Minnesota, has run a short profile piece on one of our 2010 Hacker's Favorite Award winners Valley High Golf Club in Houston, Minnesota.  The course is managed by Bob "Izzy" Isabell, whom we met at the La Crosse Golf Show in March.

This is the kind of course that we really like to see get some recognition.  It's a beautiful track, nicely priced, rated in the top 20 in hospitality. Perfect for the typical golfer.

Congrats to Bob Isabell and the Valley High Golf Club.

As an author it is always nice to get positive feedback from readers.  Since our 2nd book came out, the Hacker's Guide to Minnesota & Western Wisconsin Golf Courses, we've had six reviews all praising the book.  It's nice to read that they like the book for the reason that we wrote it in the first place.  Hopefully it is helping sales and if you haven't already purchased a book, you gotta get to Amazon.com and buy it.  The Twin Cities guide is also there too.  Minnesota Guide.  Twin Cities Guide.

Some of the quotes:

"The Hacker's Guide is right on time. Its fresh take on course reviews is enough to make the golf enthusiast want to read this book just for fun."

"Just like a hole in one in golf, this book about golf courses also delivers the goods on the first attempt."

"What a Great Book! Their reviews are written by everyday golfers, who have a straight forward approach to golf."

Really nice to hear! 

We just posted the Next Stage Business Radio interview from May 1st.  Listen in to Pamela Muldoon, a very smart media type, ask Bruce Stasch questions about what is the Hacker's Guide, what do we do, what is Team Hacker and what is our BIG vision.  Listen here.

I learned an interesting thing about Facebook. The more friends you have, the more friends you want.  When I first launched a Hacker's Guide Facebook page and had about 50 friends.  Then we sent e-mails out to get others to join.  One we advertised that we were giving away a free book to the 100th we shot past that number (the winner was from Florida interestingly) and now we have 120 friends shooting for 200.

I think its a disease collecting friends.  Some pages have MILLIONs of friends (yes, that's right) so if we shot for 5,000 friends that would be very cool.  Come and join the Hacker's Guide family.  We're waiting.

Yep, there it is on Page 2.  Our first print feature about Hacker's Guide, what we're up to, why we're doing it and me!  Can't beat that.  Its eighteen column inches with a picture (still hasn't appeared online yet). The reporter, Gail Olson spend about 90 minutes with me and it seemed that she got everything we talked about in the article from "what are hackers" to "how do you find your Team Hacker members" to "where can you find the book".

Although this is a North Minneapolis-centric piece (I live in North Minneapolis, the paper covers the area and our illustrator is located in Northeast Minneapolis) it talks a lot about what we are trying to do and how we're different. I even sold the book to someone the day the article came out.  If it appears only, I'll add this link later.