Desert Dunes

Robert Trent Jones II has several golf courses in the Coachella Valley, one of which is the public-access Desert Dunes Golf Club. This standalone property advertises Jones’s architectural expertise, as well as the scenic views of the desert and mountains rising around the property.

One of Jones’s signatures is the sharing of a double green for holes nos. 9 and 18, a tactic he uses perhaps more than any other designer. Often there is a lake separating the two fairways but, being in the desert, he was limited to a creek in this instance. When players reach the green on this par five and par four, respectively, they’ll find that the bunkers haven’t quite ended. Although it's always problematic to end up on the wrong end of a double green, it’s doubly troublesome when the two sides are guarded by an additional pot bunker that sits in the middle of the green. Approach carefully!

One of the last places you might expect to find the Canadian Tour is in the arid Coachella Valley, and yet the best players from that relative tundra came to the desert for a few years during the "aughts" for competition.