EXCURSION: REACH FOR THE STARS, SKINS AT TRILOGY.

Byline: Dave Shelburne Staff Writer

LA QUINTA - This is where you go to test your skins skills, the same course played by Tiger Woods, Annika Sorenstam and Skins Game legend Freddie Couples.

The price is right in the summertime at Trilogy Golf Club, home of the Skins Games won by Couples the past two years and five times in 11 attempts, during which he won 77 skins and $3.5 million.

For $59 before noon or $39 after noon (both rates including cart) daily for the remainder of the summer, golfers can take on Trilogy and try their luck at the 10th-hole birdie putt that earned Couples $300,000 in November.

They also can try the water-fronted, par-3 17th, the 204-yard hole where Couples defeated Woods in a 2004 playoff and drained a 55-foot birdie putt good for a $140,000 skin in 2003.

Then there's the 471-yard, par-4 fourth hole, where Sorenstam issued one of the most memorable comments in Skins Game history in 2003. After watching Couples, Phil Mickelson and 2002 Skins Game champion Mark O'Meara hit monster drives, the world's top-ranked female golfer turned to the gallery and requested: ``When I swing, all of you blow.''

As it turned out, Sorenstam didn't need much help in her Skins Game debut, holing a 39-yard eagle from a bunker adjacent to Trilogy's water-flanked ninth green to take the midway lead with $175,000. She wound up with five skins, $225,000 and plenty of admiration from her longer-hitting opponents.

``I certainly didn't play better than Annika,'' said Couples, who won $605,000 in that year's Skins Game. ``I just made a few more putts and a couple of lucky shots.''

O'Meara had similar sentiments about Sorenstam, who has since won her 62nd LPGA title, matched Woods with nine major championships and is halfway to the first Grand Slam women's professional golf in 75 years entering this week's U.S. Women's Open.

``I've played with a lot of fine players,'' O'Meara said, ``and I'd have to put Annika at the top of the list.''

Sorenstam succeeded in the 2003 Skins Game by hitting almost every fairway. Area golfers can increase their fairway-in-regulation statistics by choosing the most favorable of the many teebox options at Trilogy.

The course, which can play from 4,998 yards to the Skins Games tips of 7,176 yards, offers six sets of men's tees and four sets for women.

The Gary Panks-designed layout also presents patrons with large, smooth-rolling greens, mostly wide fairways and water that comes into play on seven holes - most notably on the 575-yard, par-5 ninth, which is made more challenging with its steeply sloped green.

Perhaps the most scenic hole on the course, particularly in late afternoon, is the par-5 No. 18, which plays 524 yards and features a teebox-fronting lake.

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Photo:

Mike Padula of La Crescenta lets his tee shot fly on Trilogy's 524-yard, par-5 18th hole, one of the most scenic on the La Quinta course.

Dave Shelburne/Daily News

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TRILOGY GOLF COURSE