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By Bob Enzel My golfing family and I checked into the Marriott in
Palm Desert during high season with a week of golf in front of us and many
courses to choose from. To ease us onto the golf scene we opted to start
off with the home course, Shadow Ridge at Marriott. As a Marriott
member the fee of $110 was reduced to $100 which for Palm Desert during high
season we considered to be reasonable. The course was in excellent
condition and proved a suitable challenge, however, the weather wasn’t quite
as good as we anticipated, but neither were we. There were sufficient water
holes to keep our attention focused away from the beautiful mountain scenery
and enough sand bunkers to give everyone’s sand wedge a decent workout.
On our second day we decided to play Shadow Ridge again because we felt it was a good course worthy of our exceptional golfing abilities. This time around the course layout was familiar and we knew which bunkers we did not want to be in and where we preferred our balls to land. The course was beautifully laid out and reminded us of Hawk’s Landing a delightful course in Florida which is also a Marriott property (see George Schissler’s detailed review.) The weather improved to an anticipated Palm Springish feel and our game improved as we got over our jet lag and found our groove…so to speak. It was a fun day on the course. The magazine “Golf News” had an advertorial on Indian Springs Golf and Country Club in Indio; their ad sold us on giving it a try. It was a nice course, but with 729 homes in this residential development we thought the course a bit cramped. On the narrow fairways two balls clunked roofs; another disappeared into a fenced off yard and one plopped into a swimming pool. One of the more interesting aspects about this course was that to get from hole #9 to hole #10 and from hole #18 back to the clubhouse, golfers have to cross a traffic controlled intersection. On a positive note, their excellent GPS system was right on the money and the fairways and greens were in fine condition. The ad truthfully claimed the greens were small and well maintained at a tournament level 10 rating on the USGA stimpmeter. The fee was perhaps bit high for this semi-private course in my humble opinion at $99—the advertorial promised the best golf value under $100…but it didn’t tell us we had to pay extra for driving range balls.
Hole one was over five hundred yards. It’s not often
that you begin with a par five and a chance to use one third of your clubs
on the first hole. The course had its good and bad points and perhaps the
bad outweighed the good at this juncture of its short life as a golf
course. The greens were large and interesting but several were under
repair; the par 3 holes offered a nice mixture of long and short holes; the
sand traps were strategically placed; abundant water with lots of wildlife,
but, the cart paths were unpaved--sandy and dusty. A couple of the
fairways were quite divoted from previous golfers who must have been using
pick axes instead of golf clubs; so many divots it looked like a mole
convention was in town. The management at Escena was good enough to
provide a nice little course layout booklet at no charge similar to one that
Trilogy sells for about $7 dollars. The scenery was lovely, of
course, mountains all around us, but this was a facility of the future that
we would try again after it completes the construction. When it came time to decide where we would play our final round, we decided we’d rather play the Marriott’s Shadow Ridge Golf Course again then play another housing development course in Palm Springs or Indio. After all, Shadow Ridge is not a poor relation—it’s a Nick Faldo designed championship course with formidable bunkers, generous fairways and subtle undulating greens. And, the ubiquitous Santa Rosa Mountains are also in the background. The bottom line is that it’s your money and your time. Sure, play famous courses and say you did it, but don't be conned by the “Skins Game” into believing Trilogy is the greatest resort since sliced bread. When you watch the pros play on TV you don't see construction or streets between fairways--what you do see are gorgeous mountains and beautifully manicured golf holes. The pros play on a lot of courses around the U.S. and we've played a number of them without finishing the round feeling like we'd been part of a marketing plan.
We’ve now returned home in the cold and long for the pleasant weather in the Palm Springs valley and the enjoyment of playing golf in the desert. No question, Palm Springs has a lot to offer the recreational golfer on vacation who wants to escape the bone-chilling cold of winter. If you get the opportunity, by all means go and enjoy the mountains and the fine golf courses carved out of desert sands. Tip: Check out the local “Southern California Golf News” (paper) for advertisements offering reduced fees. There was even a January $99 special at Trilogy which we couldn’t take advantage of and a $55 special at Indian Palms. Also, check for on-line specials.
. Brief course comparisons: Length/Tee
Course Rating/Slope Course Designer
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Now
it was time to play one of the more well known courses. Our reservation to
play Trilogy Golf Course at La Quinta had been made weeks before so
all we had to do was show up. For our $130 fee we anticipated a
top-of-the-line golf course, but perhaps we anticipated too much? Yes, the
mountain scenery from Trilogy is beautiful, but the scenery is also
attractive at most of the other lesser lights, however, the “Skins Game” is
played here and maybe therein lays our consternation. Playing the course we
noted that we crossed street after second-home-street from one
fairway to the next. Our feelings were that Trilogy is not a golf
course decorated with lovely homes, it is a housing development with lovely
tee boxes and fairways. At this particular time the greens had been
reseeded and were several weeks away from putting merit. Which reminds me,
golfers have to pay extra for a decent course layout and the carts did not
provide GPS service. If you accept the premise that because a couple of
golf pros play the course once a year it must be a great resort, then you’ve
been had. Our opinion is that Trilogy doesn’t respect the
recreational golfer—it’s after money. There were some good points, such as,
an excellent driving range, putting and chipping facilities, but was this
worth thirty more dollars over equal or better facilities at Shadow Ridge?
We thought not.
The
following recently appeared in the “Travel & Leisure Golf” magazine. “Escena
Golf Club…which opened in 2005, is a wide-open Nicklaus designed affair,
forgiving without being facile. The conditions are superb year-round, and
the greens fees top off at $115, a veritable bargain around here.” Around
here referred to Palm Springs. We went on the Internet to check out the
Escena Golf Club and found that the on-line rate was only $75
dollars---a Palm Springs bargain. The weather continued to be good and the
price was fair, but the resort was still undergoing construction which
perhaps reflected the rate. The driving range consisted of a back
yard-type-hitting net and a practice putting green the size of a nutshell.
Range balls were free, but hitting into a net was like kissing your sister.
According to a golfer that joined our threesome; “the club house has been
under construction for three years.” 
