Some Fairways Become Familiar Friends

The place

Empire Ranch is Folsom: planned, oak-dotted, and close to the American River's new life as a reservoir town. For a Sacramento-area golfer it is the kind of course that stops being a destination and starts being a relationship. You learn the holes. You notice the season in the grass. The 50-state quest needs new stamps. A life in golf also needs repeats.

What it asks of you: Not every meaningful round has to be the first time.

JW’s personal notes from the round will live here — the funny moment, the people, the 19th hole — without inventing what hasn’t been written yet.