At the risk of fraying an already threadbare Nevada metaphor, July is jackpot month for Reno-Tahoe and its thousands of annual summertime visitors. Sure, you can take a shot at living up to that word’s literal meaning in the region’s many casinos — nothin’ wrong with that — but the real riches are found outdoors. Not only does the year’s warmest month attract sun-worshipping adventurers of every stripe and sensibility, from golfers to mountain climbers and bikers to kayakers. It’s also crammed with enough fresh-air events to keep golf fans busy for all 31 days, whether they’re watching the two big tournaments sharing the same week on this year’s calendar — the Reno-Tahoe Open and American Century Celebrity Championship — or playing the game themselves at one or more of the region’s nearly 40 public and daily-fee courses framed by granite Sierra peaks, weathered and sage-clad desert hills, forests of Douglas fir and lodgepole pine, verdant high-country meadows … name your geographical photo-op.

Name your favorite kind of digs and delicacy, too. Among West Coast destinations, Reno-Tahoe and environs, including Truckee and Plumas County, Calif., serve up a serious breadth of lodging and dining options. You can hole up in a four-star hotel room at, say, the Eldorado, Peppermill, Nugget and Atlantis in Reno-Sparks or Harrah’s and Harveys Lake Tahoe; rent a fully appointed luxury condo overlooking the lake or at one of the region’s multi-season recreational resorts, such as Northstar-at-Tahoe; bring the whole family in for an extended private home stay during tournament week, or whenever; or, if you’re so inclined, rough it in a campground or motor home park. When it’s time to chow down, the variety of Reno-Tahoe’s culinary landscape is simply and satisfyingly phenomenal, every bit as impressive as Las Vegas though on a more intimate, friendly, flash-free scale.

Well, OK, there is some flash. This is Nevada, after all. But it’s also 20 degrees cooler, meaning valley temperatures in the 90s, mountains and lake in the 80s, with sweet afternoon breezes and nighttime temps dipping into light jacket territory. Can you say perfect? We think so. So let’s get down to laying out a plan for your perfect dose of Reno-Tahoe re-july-venation.

WHERE TO PLAY

ArrowCreek — A 36-hole private club with one course, the Arnold Palmer-Ed Seay Legends, open to the public. It’s a thrilling ride over south Reno’s desert hills with some of the area’s best valley and mountain views. The clubhouse is first-class.
www.golfarrowcreek.com

Coyote Moon — New management, but the same amazing mountain experience that begins on a ridge above Truckee, then dives deep into swooping, forested terrain. Holes 11-15 are nothing short of incredible.
www.coyotemoongolf.com

D’Andrea — Some of the best conditioning around, an inventive Keith Foster routing (with reversed nines this year) and great service high in the Pah Rah Range above Sparks add up to a can’t-miss day on the links, at great rates.
www.dandreagolf.com

Dayton Valley — More Palmer-Seay fun, this time in a picturesque valley east of Carson City. Water features, ample bunkering and huge greens conspire to create a classic high-desert “inland links” challenge. A perennial Q School stop.
www.daytonvalley.com

Eagle Valley — The east course is flat and open, the West is hilly and tight. Together they comprise an affordable and engaging way to go back-to-back 18s on a long summer day.
www.eaglevalleygolf.com

Edgewood Tahoe — The celebs take it over in mid-July, but you can play this world-famous Tahoe-side, Fazio-designed masterpiece right before or after the tournament — or anytime from late May to mid-October. The final three holes hug the lake.
www.edgewood-tahoe.com

Genoa Lakes — You couldn’t get two more different Nevada golf vibes, and they’re just a couple miles apart. The original Lakes Course, designed by John Harbottle III and Peter Jacobsen, is just that — water-driven fun including a few holes on the Carson River. The Resort Course, meanwhile, goes the sage-strewn links route for a different side of Harbottle, with an assist from Johnny Miller.
www.genoalakes.com

Incline Championship — Robert Trent Jones Sr.’s original Tahoe basin effort, which opened in the 1960s, was brought back to full form by Kyle Phillips a few years ago, cementing its status as one of the region’s top plays. Sweeping lake views and towering pines make for sweet mountain magic. Toss in a round at the executive Mountain Course and make a day of it.
www.golfincline.com

LakeRidge — Trent Jones again, this time in Reno. The par-3 15th, with its eagle’s-view back tee and 240-yard carry, 150-foot drop to an island green, is easily the most famous par 3 in Northern Nevada.
www.lakeridgegolf.com

Northstar-at-Tahoe — Robert Muir Graves found a way to make two diverse nines, opened years apart — one spread through a mountain meadow just southeast of Truckee, the other wound through forest — work harmoniously. The centerpiece of a growing all-season recreational development (see more below), Northstar is a family-friendly choice and an absolute blast to play.
www.northstarattahoe.com

Old Brockway — One of the area’s oldest courses, a sneaky-tough nine-holer that hosted an early version of Bing Crosby’s Clambake, which became the AT&T at Pebble Beach.
www.oldbrockway.com

Old Greenwood — Jack Nicklaus’s second area effort, and the only one open to the public, helped ignite Truckee’s golf boom early this decade. It’s a big-shouldered, tree-lined, cliff-hugging beauty that brings the Bear’s finest late-era design aspects — balanced bunkering, stunning green complexes, wide landing areas — to bear. Pun intended.
www.oldgreenwood.com

Plumas Pines — This handsome and facile course that skirts the Feather River near Graeagle, Calif., is full of surprises, including some of the Sierra’s best greens.
www.plumaspinesgolf.com

Red Hawk — Teeming with wildlife and built around natural lakes and wetlands in the Spanish Springs area of Sparks, Robert Trent Jones Jr.’s Lakes Course puts a fascinating golfer’s spin on a former duck-hunting preserve. No. 17 is one tough hombre of a par 3, all carry over water to a shallow green. If you can swing it, also get a time on the private Hale Irwin-authored Hills Course.
www.resortatredhawk.com

Timilick — A true John Harbottle-Johnny Miller home run set on a forested ridge near Truckee. The back nine is world class by any measure, with granite outcroppings and old-growth trees framing several holes. The public can get a tee time on a limited basis.
Don’t miss out.
www.timilick.com

Whitehawk Ranch — Perhaps the most gorgeous natural setting for golf in the Sierra outside of Lake Tahoe, in the Mohawk Valley just south of Graeagle, where river, meadow and forest converged to give first-time architect Dick Bailey a can’t-miss canvas. Bailey has gone on to build a solid design portfolio, but Whitehawk remains his finest hour.
www.golfwhitehawk.com

Wolf Run — You simply can’t have more fun playing golf on the lee side of the Sierra. Bisected by creeks with rolling fairways and fast-rolling greens perched on sage-scented hills and hollows, this friendly daily-fee track — home course for the University of Nevada, Reno golf program — comes at you from all angles, in a good way.
www.wolfrungolfclub.com

PREFERRED LIES: WHERE TO STAY

Unless you simply must be close to the casino action, opting for a resort rental — whether it be a course-side condo or villa, private home, fractionally owned luxury townhome or cottage — is a great way to stay. But Reno-Tahoe is rife with outstanding vacation lodging options of all makes and models.

Over the past decade, Northstar-at-Tahoe has evolved into the North Lake Tahoe-Truckee area’s most fully formed all-season resort, with a popular ski resort by winter and all manner of warm weather recreation — golf, fishing, horseback riding, mountain biking and hiking — by summer. For years, lodging was centered around ski lodges up the hill and townhouses in forested settings near the golf course, but now the choices are truly exceptional. Not long after they debuted under different ownership in 2008, FG bestowed a glowing review upon the Hyatt Residence Club’s collection of high-end one- and two-bedroom residences (www.northstar.hyatt.com), which occupy one side of Northstar’s recently expanded Village. They boast millionaire-level appointments including full entertainment systems, gourmet kitchens and top-of-the-line fixtures, as well as instant access to a chairlift right out the back door. Then there’s the brand-new Ritz-Carlton Highlands Lake Tahoe (www.ritzcarlton.com/laketahoe), a mid-mountain masterwork of alpine luxury. Guests get ski-in-ski-out privileges when the snow falls, and since Northstar is affiliated with the entire Tahoe Mountain Resorts community and its collection of golf courses, including Coyote Moon, Old Greenwood and Gray’s Crossing, visitors at both the Ritz-Carlton and Hyatt can get a tee time on those incredible tracks as well as the on-property course, plus get a reservation at the members-only Wild Goose restaurant over the hill on Lake Tahoe’s north shore.

Besides its partner properties over at Northstar, Tahoe Mountain Resorts serves up its own stellar share of top-drawer lodging in the form of privately owned villas and fractionals that line Old Greenwood’s fairways and climb up Northstar’s slopes. Check out the options at www.tahoemountainresorts.com and www.tahoemountainclub.com.

Down the hill in the Reno bedroom community of Sparks, The Resort at Red Hawk offers perhaps the most unique lodging scenario in Northern Nevada — a collection of full-size villas behind the Lakes Course’s No. 9 green, within chipping distance of the resort’s events center, clubhouse, swimming and fitness center plus David’s, a sports bar-slash-steakhouse with a shady patio just behind the 18th green and a menu packed with great sandwiches (try the grilled cheese), salads and entrees. The villas are perfect for large groups, families and couples alike, with kitchens, comfy living and bedrooms … and plenty of golfing, shopping and gaming nearby.

Reno-Tahoe’s tourism-and-events-driven economy gives visitors a wealth of hotel and motel options, from the basic bargain chain drive-ups to mid-priced, corporate suite hotels — the Marriotts, Hyatts and Hilton crowd — to the bigger and more full-featured hotel-casinos that truly define the area’s lodging personality.

Anchoring downtown Reno are the “tri-properties” — Eldorado, Silver Legacy and Circus Circus, the closest Northern Nevada comes to a mega-resort since they’re all connected and together represent several thousand rooms, more than a dozen restaurants and all kinds of entertainment, from daily circus acts to big-room one-night concerts to ongoing revues in the elegant Eldorado Showroom. Harrah’s Reno might still be the best known downtown hotel to longtime Reno fans, and its showroom — where the likes of Sammy Davis Jr. and Bill Cosby held court for decades — always has something going. Head down South Virginia Street and you’ll find a recently-overhauled Atlantis — its year-old spa is easily the best in town — and the Peppermill, whose owners have invested more than $500 million to create a Vegas-level experience with two hotel towers, two swimming pools, incredible dining options and oodles of new parking thanks to a multi-story garage. The place is huge, spectacular and impressive … while still maintaining that low-key Reno guise.

Besides a few smaller hotel-motels, downtown Sparks and its Victorian Square special events area (where the popular Rib Cook-Off takes place every Labor Day weekend) is pretty much the domain of John Ascuaga’s Nugget, which recently celebrated its 55th birthday. It’s still a family-run concern despite its big-time room count and amenity list, and continues to enjoy high marks for its cuisine, led by its venerable Steak House and Mediterranean showcase, Orozko.

Tahoe has its share of high-rise digs, too — Harrah’s Tahoe, Harveys, the High Sierra and Montbleu, formerly Caesars on the south shore and the Hyatt in Incline Village — along with the massive Embassy Suites resort just across the California border within walking distance of Edgewood Tahoe, and countless motel, cabin and camping options. Rent one of the cabins at Zephyr Cove Resort four miles from the casino core, and you’ll get access to one of the lake’s best beaches.

WHERE TO EAT
RENO/SPARKS
Squeeze In — This family-owned spot’s giant omelettes are so popular they even rated a “throwdown” challenge from TV chef Bobby Flay; you’ll find its original sister eatery 30 miles west on I-80 in Truckee.

PJ and Company — Another great breakfast-lunch spot that’s packed with locals every day of the week.

Washoe Grill — A come-as-you-are steakhouse that consistently ranks among the city’s best.

Vivoli Café — Reno’s newest Italian restaurant, where chef Donato Partipillo knows how to do al dente.
The lobster ravioli in brandy sauce is incredible and the desserts are perfect.

Bistro Roxy — Though La Strada is still a great choice for Northern Italian fare, the trend-bending Roxy has become the Eldorado’s flagship dining room.

Manhattan Deli — As close to New York as Reno will ever come, at the Atlantis. You can hear the accent with every bite of pastrami or potato knish.

Beto’s — In a town loaded with excellent Mexican eateries, this hole-in-the-wall on Fifth Street downtown is both authentic and inexpensive. Try the wet burrito.

TRUCKEE
Cottonwood Restaurant — Underneath the big “Hilltop” sign, this spot mixes semi-rustic atmosphere with the eclectic — seafood, steak and off-road dishes like butternut squash enchiladas.

NORTH TAHOE
Jake’s on the Lake — This Tahoe City landmark offers great patio dining and a fresh seafood-heavy menu.

The Char Pit — Monster burgers, real shakes, picnic tables: A royal greasefest in Kings Beach.

Soule Domaine — Upscale nouvelle fare served in an old log cabin. Pure Tahoe bliss for four decades.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE
Red Hut — Two locations not far from Edgewood and Heavenly ski resort, and a breakfast purist’s paradise. The omelettes are cooked in square pans and the ‘cakes are carbtastic.

Gi Fu Loh — As (Chinese) luck would have it, Harrah’s Tahoe has created one fine Cantonese showcase.

Sage Room — Harvey’s original steakhouse on the main casino floor, complete with huge wagon wheel hanging over the dining room. The pepper steak heads a can’t-miss continental lineup.