Who are President Obama's golf buddies?

In golf, the buddy road trip is almost a rite-of-passage.

Longtime friends grab their clubs and hit the road for a few rounds of golf in a location far from where they live. It’s a chance for some male bonding over stories of missed birdies, courses they have played before, needling over poor shots or lost bets and general talk about life.

For President Barack Obama, one destination of choice for his buddy golf trips is the Coachella Valley. Each year since 2013, the president has made a trip to the desert, often to meet with world leaders.

Obama continues presidential desert golf

But each trip has included golf, and each golf round has included his golfing buddies.

Unlike many of Obama’s rounds near Washington D.C., where he might play golf with members of Congress or even media personalities, the president’s trips to the desert have been populated by his personal friends.

In his trips to the Coachella Valley – and generally in his vacations to Hawaii where he grew up – Obama has played golf with three close personal friends. Bobby Titcomb, Greg Orme and Mike Ramos all attended Punahou School, a prep school in Honolulu with Obama.

There has been no notification about whether the president will play golf on his trip to the desert beginning Friday or who might join the president on the course, but unofficially, this year’s trip is expected to be like other trips, including the president playing golf with his three friends.

Unlike the high-profile life of the president, Obama’s three friends have lives something closer to normal day-to-day lives. Orme is a building contractor. Titcomb has held a few different jobs, including working for an airline and being a commercial fisherman. Ramos is most often referred to in stories about his relations with the president as a businessman.

While the foursome gets together in Hawaii over the holidays each year, Titcomb, Orme and Ramos have also gathered in the Coachella Valley to join their high school friends for boys-only golf outings.

Those outings have included the president’s 2013 trip to the desert to meet with the president of China, a 2014 desert summit with King Abdullah II of Jordan and perhaps this week’s presidential visit for a summit with leaders from Southeast Asia. That summit will be at Sunnylands, the Rancho Mirage estate of the late Walter and Leonore Annenberg. Sunnylands, which also hosted the summits with the president of China and the king of Jordan, includes an exclusive golf course.

World's eyes on Sunnylands: What to expect

Sunnylands is one of two golf courses the Hawaiian friends have played in the desert. The other is Porcupine Creek, the private course on the grounds of the Rancho Mirage estate owned by billionaire Larry Ellison. Both exclusive courses are familiar to golfers in the desert, even if most golfers never get a look inside the gates of the two courses.