Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course in Stateline, Nevada

Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course is 6,000 feet above sea level at South Lake Tahoe, ringed by the High Sierras and hard by the deep-blue and turquoise waters of Lake Tahoe, with sailboats tacking on the white-capped waters and houseboats serenely cruising by.

It's like playing golf in a travel brochure. In fact, it's sometimes hard to concentrate on the golf; you often find yourself just gazing around at the earthly magnificence.

The layout has towering pines smack in the middle of fairways, and these are no spindly pines you encounter in the South - these are the big, fat pines that look like oak trees and can be formidable hazards.

In the mornings and afternoons, sunlight slants through the pines like the setting of a novel. The golf course actually sneaks from Nevada into California at one point, the ninth green, so both states can lay claim to Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course.

"The site is one of the most beautiful in the United States," Tom Fazio wrote in "Golf Course Designs." "... It's a wonderful place and no matter when I go there I never tire of that magnificent setting."