Lahontan Golf Club - California, U.S.A.

Lahontan Golf Club is part of the gated community of Lahontan near Northern California's Lake Tahoe. The course is a scenic tapestry of the Northern Californian  landscape-ridges of towering bottle-green pines, wetlands, flowering meadows alongside mountain lakes, and black rock outcroppings. Tom Weiskopf, who has become a top-notch golf course designer after a long career as one of the top pros of the 1960s and 1970s, has used the natural bounty at his disposal to full effect. Weiskopf's traditional-style design incorporates sentinel Ponderosa pines and Martis Creek, which appears for the first time on the eighth hole. There are views of Gooseneck Reservoir and to the west looms the Pacific Crest range between Tinker's Knob and Castle Peak, with Mount Rose and the Carson Range to the east. Lahontan takes its name from the Lahontan cutthroat trout, a prehistoric species that can still be found in Lake Tahoe and Martis Lake.

Stanford University Golf Course - California, U.S.A.

The Stanford University Golf Course, which opened in 1930, is located in the Palo Alto foothills above the Stanford campus, and from the 18th hole there is a spectacular view of downtown San Francisco. The course was designed by George C. Thomas and his construction superintendent Billy Bell, who produced many of California's most storied layouts, including Riviera and Los Angeles Country Club. It was built at the behest of Stanford's students, who found a dedicated supporter in Almon E. Roth, the university Comptroller, who convinced the trustees to provide the land and finance construction. When Bell first surveyed the property, he immediately recognized the benefit of incorporating San Francisquito Creek into the design, which required obtaining the land on the other side of the creek. Acquiring the additional property necessitated passage of an amendment to the California State Constitution to permit a land swap. Construction began in 1929, with great care taken to preserve the old oaks on the property, and Felt Lake was enlarged to provide water for the course. Many illustrious golfers have played their college golf at Stanford. The most famous of all is, of course, Tiger Woods, but other notable Stanford golfers include Tom Watson and Woods's teammates Notah Begay and Casey Martin.