Best golf courses near Truckee, CA

Back in the 1960s, a forest south of Truckee served as a location for the filming of the popular TV western “Bonanza.” Now it’s the locale for three diverse residential courses, Schaffer’s Mill by Johnny Miller and the late John Harbottle, Lahontan by Tom Weiskopf, and Martis Camp by Tom Fazio. Fazio has called this site one of the finest natural pieces of property on which he’s ever created a golf course. It has pines, firs, hemlocks and rocky outcroppings on nearly every hole, particularly the 18th, where the clubhouse sits atop a 70-foot-high wall of granite behind the green. Fairways are broad, though hazarded by squiggly bunkers in certain spots, and some greens have trunks of tall Ponderosa pines uncomfortably close. So gorgeous is Martis Camp Golf Club that one critic called it, “a private-gated national park experience.”

Situated a few miles north of Lake Tahoe, Lahontan is a Tom Weiskopf design that weaves through the densely forested landscape. Weiskopf balanced playability and challenge, presenting narrow corridors off many tees that open to forgiving fairways and large greens. Lahontan is an aesthetically pleasing layout, playing among towering pines and wispy fescue set against a mountain backdrop.

Old Greenwood is one of two 18-hole courses at Tahoe Mountain Club, and since 2020 the Jack Nicklaus signature design has hosted the PGA Tour’s modified stableford event, the Barracuda Championship. Winding through pine forests, meadows, and hilly terrain, Old Greenwood is both a challenging and aesthetically pleasing course.

In the mid-2000s, Kyle Phillips renovated this Robert Trent Jones Sr. design just as he did at Spain’s famed Valderrama, host of the 1997 Ryder Cup. Make sure that you’re in control of your start line on your tee shots, as stately pines guard many of the tees and fairways. The course features a blend of doglegs moving in each direction, often severely. At over 6,000 feet elevation, the ball flies roughly 10-percent further than at sea level.