Hacker's Central added a new Search Module that makes is a lot simplier to find golf courses in the Midwest. Located on the HOME PAGE and the SEARCH PAGE, you can search for courses based on State, County, City, Price Range and Total Score. Try it out and find exactly the course you're looking for. A great new functionality add.
We've hit a milestone. We just uploaded our 300th (319th actually, but who's counting) golf course review to our Hacker's Central website. There are more than 250 Minnesota course reviews and an additional 70 Wisconsin course review live on the site. We are also working on adding all the courses we reviewed in Iowa, North and South Dakota too. We will continue to add reviews all winter so we'll probably have over 500 online before February. If you want to check out the list for Minnesota click HERE and the list for Wisconsin click HERE.
We were fortunate to be profiled in the weekly Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal in July for a business panel. The meeting was hosted by the publication in their downtown editorial offices and had three panelists: Michael Turnbull, director of golf business at TeeMaster, Bill White, former publisher and founder of Super Lawyers and Law & Politics, and Bradley Walz, intellectual property lawyer at Winthrop & Weinstine (our lawyer).
Along with the article was a photo of our Publisher Bruce Stasch (does he look fat in this picture??).
It was a great opportunity to present the Hacker's Guide to experts that could give us some honest feedback on what we are doing right and what we were not.
Read the full article HERE.
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!
