The deep blue of Lake Tahoe meets the thin air of the High Sierra at an altitude of about 5,000 feet, and the vistas are, as you might expect, striking. It is the kind of place where a person can contemplate the questions of the ages -- like whether to use a 3-wood or a 5-wood to cover the last 270 yards of this par-5.
Up here, I really am Tiger Woods.
In baseball, they call it the Coors Field effect. The atmospheric resistance to the flight of a projectile diminishes the higher you get above sea level, which explains why it's much easier to hit a home run in Denver than it is in Detroit. It also provides the only explanation for why a paunchy, midlife-crisis-waiting-to-happen can drive a golf ball 310 yards off the tee without the help of a Big Bertha or a Ken Caminiti cocktail.
Golf at altitude.
What a thing.
"People just love that," said Doug Flynn, head golf pro at the Resort at Squaw Creek. "They end up swinging from their shoes, just to go home and say they hit a wedge 150 yards."
The rarefied air at high altitude can add as much as 15 percent to the distance of a solid shot. That turns a 5-iron at sea level into a 7-iron at Squaw Creek's 6,200-foot elevation.
Three years ago, a friend invited me to the Lake Tahoe area for a few days of golf and -- don't tell my wife -- a few nights of gaming. My flight was late, and my buddy informed me that we had 20 minutes to meet our tee time at a pretty public course called Rosewood Lakes.
Trouble was, I had not swung a club in nearly two months and was looking forward to a couple of sessions on the driving range before hitting the links. Instead, it was all I could do to get my spikes on before we were on the first tee.
My first shot, miraculously, was dead solid and it didn't stop rolling until I was an easy wedge from the green. Four hours later, I was celebrating the best round of my life -- by five strokes. Though I didn't play that well again on the trip, I continued to hit the ball longer than ever and returned to Baltimore with enough long-drive stories to bore even my most patient golf partners.
I'm a lousy golfer, so when I recount how I chopped five strokes off my best score, we're only talking about an 87 (though if I had avoided that seven on 17, I would still be strutting around saying, "Yeah, I shoot in the mid-80s.").
My golf threesome at home (I don't have enough friends for a foursome) is so bad that we call ourselves Tres Ochos -- Spanish for Three Eights. One member of the group is so erratic that there's talk of establishing a charity golf tournament just to benefit the people he has injured on the course.
Beautiful courses
The thin air at high altitude isn't going to keep you from shanking the ball into the trees, but the impressive scenery will take the sting out of a tough round. There are dozens of beautiful courses in the area around Lake Tahoe and Reno, Nev., and each has its own perspective on tall pines and snow-capped mountains.
Perhaps the best known course is Edgewood Tahoe, the site of the annual American Century Celebrity Golf Championship. The course borders the lake and finishes with two shoreline greens that are framed by the crystal blue water and the High Sierra. It's pricey -- the greens fee is $200 with cart and range balls -- but it might be as pretty as Pebble Beach in California at little more than half the price.
Edgewood is a difficult course, but there are even more challenging layouts in the area. The relatively new Dragon at Gold Mountain takes great pride in its reputation as one of the most beguiling courses in the West.
The clubhouse and restaurant complex was built in a Native American motif from blueprints drawn by Frank Lloyd Wright for a similar project that was never completed in Michigan. But don't be fooled by the upscale accommodations. The golf course is not for the faint of heart.
The Resort at Squaw Creek, which doubles as a ski resort in the winter, also can leave you searching the bottom of your golf bag for extra balls, with environmental areas so huge that golfers navigate parts of the course on long wooden cart bridges.
Not every course, however, is unforgiving. Picturesque Coyote Moon, about 30 miles west of Reno in Truckee, Calif., provides all the scenic beauty of the Sierra with a moderately challenging layout and an imaginative landscape that includes huge boulders around several greens.
Coyote Moon also takes advantage of the natural changes in elevation to create some of the most spectacular par-3 holes in the region, though the most dynamic par-3 might be the signature 15th hole at Reno's Lake Ridge Golf Course, which features a view of the Reno skyline from the tee box and a water-locked green nearly 200 feet below.
Northstar-at-Tahoe, another course in the Truckee area, includes the best of both worlds, with wide-open fairways on the first nine holes and a more mountainous, challenging back nine. Tahoe-Donner, near the pass where the ill-fated Donner wagon train got caught in a blizzard in 1846, also uses the natural terrain to scenic advantage.
The Golf Club at Genoa Lakes, one of the nine championship courses in the vicinity of Carson City, Nev., provides a change of pace -- a windswept links-style course nestled among the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.
It's in the air
There is no question that the altitude has an impact on the quality of play. The ball travels farther, and it even goes a little straighter, since the thin air also has been known to take a few degrees off your slice.
If there is a downside, it might be that you have to adjust to the change in distance for each club, but that's a small price to pay for the feeling of exhilaration that comes from a 320-yard drive.
Of course, there are other reasons to go to Reno and Lake Tahoe. It is one of the prime ski spots in the country, and it easily makes the transition to golf, water sports and backpacking in the summer.
Oh, yes, and if you're lucky, you can pick up a few bucks at the casinos in South Lake Tahoe and Reno.
Reno has grown out of its image as the quickie divorce capital of the nation and now is trying to expand on its cachet as a prime ski area to become one of the country's premier year-round outdoor sports destinations.
The growing emphasis on golf is a big step in that direction.
When you go
Getting there: Several
major airlines fly into Reno International Airport. Discount carriers America West Airlines and Southwest Airlines offer connecting flights from BWI.
Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course, 180 Lake Parkway, Stateline, NV 89449
888-881-8659
www.edgewood-tahoe.com
* Greens fees: $200, including cart and range balls
Coyote Moon Golf Course, 10685 Northwoods Blvd., Truckee, CA 96161
530-587-0886
www.coyotemoongolfcourse. com
* Greens fees: $85-$145, including cart
Nakoma Dragon, P.O. Box 880, Graeagle, CA 96103
800-368-7786
www.nakomaresort.com
* Greens fees: $120, with cart and range balls
The Golf Club at Genoa Lakes, P.O. Box 350, Genoa, NV 89411
775-782-4653
www.genoalakes.com
* Greens fees: $45 to $100 (seasonal)
The Resort at Squaw Creek, 400 Squaw Creek Road, Olympic Valley, CA 96146
800-403-4434
www.squawcreek.com
* Greens fees: $75-$115
Rosewood Lakes Golf Course, 6800 Pembroke Drive, Reno, NV 89502
775-857-2892
www.cityofreno.com / com_ service / golf /
* Greens fees: $36-$47
Lake Ridge Golf Course, 1200 Razorback Road, Reno, NV 89509
800-815-6966
www.rno.com / lakeridge
* Greens fees: $48 to $93
For information about lodging, dining and other attractions in the area:
* Lake Tahoe Chamber of Commerce Central Reservation Service
800-824-6348
www.mytahoevacation.com
* Carson City Convention and Visitors Bureau can provide information on a variety of activities and vacation packages.
800-638-2321
www.carson-city.org.
* Golf and vacation reservations for the area can also be made by contacting Golf the High Sierra Vacations:
877-332-4465
www.golfthehighsierra.com