Oakmont Golf Club, West Course

Use your noodle ... not necessarily the ball ... and you could be in for a great day.

Oakmont Golf Club (West Course) in Santa Rosa offers a beautiful setting with a solid test and enough twists and turns to get you thinking. It also is short enough that if you can place the ball well, you should be able to do some pin-seeking.

The 1963 Ted Robinson design - the busy Robinson designed dozens of courses in California, the closest to this area being Rio Vista Golf Club - features mature trees (some even in fairways), lots of water and bunkers, and some out of bounds areas.

But it also has plenty of escape routes, and at just 6,379 yards from the blue tees, it should give you plenty of chances to hit shorter irons into undulating greens.

If you can navigate around the trouble, which is possible, you should have a lot of fun - and a good score - on a beautiful older course.

White-tee yardage is just 6,059, but still has a solid 69.5 rating and 124 slope.

Your day starts off in gentle fashion, although the view from the tee on the first hole can be intimidating. There are fairway bunkers left and right, but there is still a good deal of landing room off the tee. Favor the left side of the fairway to attack a green guarded by a bunker short and right.

There is water off the tee on the second hole, but again the hazards look more menacing than they are. Water is in play on 14 holes, but most of it can be avoided. The green of the long par-4 is guarded on the left by a tree and on the right by a bunker, and the moguls on the green help make this the No. 1 handicap hole.

No. 3 is the first par-5, a real birdie opportunity. Only one of Oakmont's four par-5s is longer than 500 yards, even from the blue tees, and the first three provide great scoring chances.

The first par-3 is a different story. No. 5 is the third-toughest hole on the course, 213 yards from the blues with a sloping green and a bunker guarding the left side.

Finish the front side with a flourish, because hole Nos. 7-9 all are birdies waiting to happen.

Hopefully you scored well on the front side, because the back is longer and tougher. The toughest holes include long par-4s at Nos. 12, 17 and 18, all of which have a combination of trees, water and bunkers.

But birdies are still available, most readily on the par-3s. Both Nos. 13 and 16 are over water, but both are short with the water closer to the tee boxes than the greens.

The finishing hole is an uphill par-4 that starts off narrow but widens. Add a couple of clubs on the approach and you could end your day in style.

The benefit of an older, thinking-player's course is one of the biggest positives here. The layout isn't overly demanding, but isn't boring, either.

Conditions are solid and should get better throughout the spring.

There are houses throughout the course, but they only come close to play on a couple of holes.

Oakmont could use a yardage book, but after 40 years without one, don't hold your breath. Just take good notes and use your course knowledge on your return trip.

The $50 weekday fare isn't terribly cheap, but you can save money by walking, which isn't a problem.

The course even has a par-63 executive track that features some demanding par-3s, if you want to hone your iron play even further.

Of course, if you're a grip-it-and-rip-it type, that may require more thinking than you'd like.

Directions - Take Interstate 80 west to Highway 12 west. Stay on Highway 12 through Sonoma and toward Santa Rosa. Turn left on Pythian Road, left on Valley Oaks Drive and right on Oakmont Drive.