And while they might love the sport, most really aren’t that good at it: About 78 percent say they usually shoot 90 or above (72 is par). Many say they’d be happy if they could regularly shoot 85 on an 18-hole course.

In Northsider Bruce Stasch’s world, that makes them "hackers," average players like him, who view the sport as a hobby, not a profession. For them, whom he calls "lightly skilled golfers," he created Hacker’s Guide, a book in which real people rated 283 public golf courses in Minnesota and Western Wisconsin.

The ratings aren’t necessarily based on a course’s beauty or difficulty. Hacker’s Guide raters (called Team Hacker) also consider how things went for them, overall, on their golf outing. Did the staff treat them well? Was the course well-maintained? Did they get their money’s worth? There are five categories: hospitality, playability, usability, facility and value.

Stasch, who has a background in advertising and marketing, said he didn’t have much trouble finding people who wanted to rate golf courses. Although they weren’t paid, they got free tee times.

"I found a lot of them on Craig’s List," he said. "We try to qualify them. They have to be observant and be able to write themselves out of a paper bag. Once we identified them, they were on ‘Team Hacker.’ We would marry the rater with a course.

"These are people who would be golfing anyway, and golfers love to tell what they like and don’t like about a course. It’s a symbiotic relationship between them and the course, unless the course gets a poor rating," Stasch said.

Hacker’s Guide 2010 is the second one he has self-published (the first Hacker’s Guide, published in 2009, included 87 courses either in the Twin Cities or within a 45-minute drive radius). The distributor is Adventure Publications in Cambridge, Minn., a regional book distributor. The printer is Bang, a Brainerd firm specializing in trade paperbacks. Stasch does the layout and design, and contracts with a sales company, Polee Golf, to get the book out to the public. "We’re on Amazon [.com], Barnes and Noble, Love for Minnesota stores and more than 50 different golf outlets.

"I just found out that we’re being tested in four Golf Galaxy stores," Stasch added. Borders, Nevada Bob’s, and area golf courses also carry Hacker’s Guides. Northeast cartoonists from Big Time Attic, Kevin Cannon and Zander Cannon (they are not related), did the cover design and illustrations.

How did local courses rate in Hacker’s Guide? Only two showed up on the Top 25 lists. Braemar in Edina tied for 18th for highest overall score (847); it also came in 12th in the facilities category. Minneapolis’ Hiawatha Golf Course tied for 6th place in value. North Minneapolis/Golden Valley’s Theodore Wirth course got a 688 overall score (out of 1000). "The layout of the front nine holes is very friendly for the walker. The back nine holes will challenge that same walker’s stamina....Overall the whole course setting with mature trees, natural water hazards and the occasional deer running through at dusk cannot be beat," wrote the reviewer.

Stasch said he personally likes Columbia, in Northeast Minneapolis, for two reasons. There is a driving range, and "It’s the one I’ve done the best on," he said. (Columbia scored 665 in Hacker’s Guide; the reviewer said the staff was pleasant and golfers can score well on the course.)

Team Hacker didn’t necessarily find a correlation between a high rating and a high cost. "The average round of golf [at a public course] costs $34; then you add in the cost of a cart and a couple of hot dogs, and you’ve easily spent $50. The cheapest course we found was $20, and the most expensive was $114. The expensive ones are typically resort courses. Our team found that what you paid was not directly related to quality."

The top three courses, which tied, cost $22 (Eagles Landing, Fort Ripley), $28 (Coffee Mill, Wabasha) and $32 (Little Crow, Spicer), he said.

Golf can be an expensive game, he added. Pebble Beach, in California, costs $375. Whistling Straits in Kohler, Wisc., costs $275 and requires golfers to hire a caddy.

"Golf can be a rich person’s game, and that’s where we come in. You can use the book to find a course where you can play 10 rounds for what one round might cost somewhere else," Stasch said.

A Hacker’s Guide press release quotes Team Hacker Dennis Delmont as saying, "I read several national golf magazines and cannot relate to the $200 greens fees and $300 a night resorts that they feature. Being a retired police officer, I have the time to play now and, as a member of Team Hacker, I have the opportunity to play courses that are available, affordable and playable for someone with my limited skills and budget."

Stasch’s team is working on a third book, Hacker’s Guide to Midwest Golf Courses, which will include every public 18-hole golf course in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota and Iowa, for a total of nearly 700 courses.

He said sales on the Minnesota and Western Wisconsin book are "really ticking up solidly" and are ahead of last year’s sales of the first Hacker’s Guide. With the expanded version (the second Hacker’s Guide includes the courses in the first book), he said, "We have the entire state to sell to." The third book will include the 283 courses reviewed in the second book. They also intend to re-visit courses every three years for updates, he added.

About Stasch

Stasch is a University of Iowa graduate and marketing major who worked for advertising agencies before starting his own company, Apex Marketing Group, the umbrella company for the Hacker’s Guides.

A web consultant for a financial services company, Stasch also operates a blog and podcast about golf and equipment called Golf Gear News.

He said he started golfing in 2004, and is "the poster child" for hackers. He got interested in creating the Hacker’s Guide when he learned that Minnesota has 508 private and public golf courses, and that Minnesota and Wisconsin rank first and second in the country for highest number of golf courses per capita.

He and his wife, Eve Sotnak, have lived in the Victory neighborhood since 1998 and he said they both like the area. "Eve is a block club leader. We know most of our neighbors; people are very aware of what is going on, and we communicate with each other." Recently, he said, they joined their neighbors in co-hosting a progressive dinner.

For information on Hacker’s Guide, go to the website, www.hackersguides.com, email ultimatehacker@hackersguides.com, or call Stasch at 612-386-9062.