BY WILL SOUTHWOOD

June 29, 2009

A popular poster exists in which the Three Stooges strike a pose on a golf course. The poster reads, "Golf with your friends." And there really isn't any better way to do it.

So in an attempt to stay connected, play the game we love, and have more than our fair share of laughs, three of my closest friends and I put together a golf trip. The goal is to do this every summer, no matter where we are in our careers or lives.

The inaugural golf-a-palooza took us to a pair of courses in Northern California. This past Friday we played DarkHorse Golf Club in Auburn and Saturday we took our swings at Northstar-at-Tahoe. The beauty of the courses rivaled the challenges they offered. Although we couldn't figure what presented a bigger challenge: our brains or the layouts of the links. As my buddy Adam said, "We didn't come on this trip to play smart golf. We came to play testosterone-filled golf." The two penalty strokes I incurred going for the green in two on par fives at Northstar would agree.

The four of us met in Sacramento Friday afternoon. We traveled up I-80 together to Auburn and took Highway 49 toward Grass Valley. DarkHorse is nestled in the breathtaking Sierra Nevada Foothills, and the course itself doesn't take away from the scenery. The Keith Foster-designed track opened in 2002 and has since been voted as one of the top 100 you can play in America by Golf Magazine. Every hole has its own identity, so it's fitting that each hole has its own name on the scorecard. The first goes by "Leap of Faith," and you practically need to take a leap of faith to believe that you can succeed on the par four. An elevated tee box overlooks a narrow fairway. There's trouble on the right and trouble on the left. In fact, you can't find many holes without danger. Big bunkers come into play in several fairways and protect most every green. Once you navigate your way to the putting surface, you have to deal with greens that roll ten and a half on the stint meter. In layman's terms, that's fast. But DarkHorse was every bit as fair as it was tough. Despite all the rolling terrain on the course, there weren't that many blind shots. As quick as the greens were, the breaks were true. Plus the carts had GPS, so we always knew exactly how many yards we had to the pin.

We finished as the sun was setting on the Sierras, a spectacular orange glow splashing the giant pine trees. After an unsuccessful search for Applebee's that went way longer than any search for an Applebee's should go, we were on our way to Lake Tahoe.

The highly acclaimed Northstar-at-Tahoe resort features world-class skiing in the winter and a bevy of activities in the summer. The Robert Muir Graves-designed golf course offers a much different test than DarkHorse. While both are par 72's, Northstar is shorter. But that doesn't mean you can put your cart into cruise control. The front is called the Meadow Nine. The fairways are bigger, so you can pull out the driver and take advantage of some extra distance courtesy of Tahoe's altitude. But the smart golfers put the driver away on the back, or the Mountain Nine. Big trees and slender creeks border the fairways. If you lose your ball slightly right or slightly left, the only thing you'll find is lost time. Also, be wary of giant crevices that guard a few greens on the back. The Mountain Nine took many of our golf balls (an exact number is not clear), but it wouldn't take our spirit.

Of the things that stick out most about the trip, I'll remember my friend Mike's two sensational birdies at DarkHorse and Adam's prodigious drives. I'll never forget the positive attitude of Spencer, a true fish out of water as a division one water polo player who is just learning the game. I think he found more balls than he lost, which is really saying something.

On the car ride to Tahoe, Mike made a very astute observation. He said we rehash the same stories every year and that they're every bit as funny as they were the first time we told them. Now we have some new tales to tell. I have no doubt they'll last a lifetime.

-Will