FeedNew Palm Springs Golf Courses for 2006
With the recent additions of The Classic Club and some others, the Coachella Valley now has more than 120 golf courses.
Here’s a look at other new layouts:
Stone Eagle: Here’s a course ideally suited for Bighorn sheep with a full bag of clubs. Designed by Tom Doak, it has a 300-foot elevation change from the lowest to highest holes. Rugged foothills and craggy rocks also help define a virtually treeless course carved into the southern far reaches of Palm Desert and featuring wide fairways and heavily bunkered greens. It’s definitely got Doak’s signature — a course blended into the environment with minimal dirt-moving.Views, naturally, are terrific, but note the first tee is a mile from the clubhouse, up a mountain road.
Andalusia: The desert’s first Rees Jones-designed course will add 18 holes late next year. The 18 holes that opened recently at this pricey gated community in southern La Quinta has expansive fairways, oversized bent-grass greens and numerous holes defined by large lakes. Then there are the backdrops that provide scenic mountain views on virtually every hole.
Escena: This Jack Nicklaus-designed, public-play, 172-acre endeavor opened for play in November. Located south of Vista Chino and east of Gene Autry Trail, it is the centerpiece of the first golf-course/residential-housing project in Palm Springs in 19 years. Stretching from 5,541 yards at the front tees to 7,173 at the back tees, it is a par-72 challenge, especially on days when those brisk winds are zipping through the Banning Pass.
Toscana: This Indian Wells club east of Cook Street has added a Jack Nicklaus-designed nine-hole north layout to an 18-hole south course that opened two years ago. Arroyos and waste bunkers help give the addition a desert-course feel. The north course will add nine holes, but that’s at least two years away.
