PGA West (Pete Dye Mountain)

Greater Palm Spring – a collection of more than twenty communities in the Coachella Valley 100 miles east of Los Angeles – has more than eighty golf courses to its name. Unfortunately, most are private clubs immediately recognizable by high walls, stay-away gates and bubbling fountains set in elaborate gardens.

But these havens of privilege haven’t put a lock on tradition. PGA West is the most venerable of the valley’s getaways, and its guest list reads like a Who’s Who of American filmmaking.

PGA West has undergone several ownership changes and has expanded greatly since its inception, but still the resort maintains an air of quiet sophistication and charm. While the hotel’s original layout, La Quinta Country Club, was long ago sold to its club members, Pete Dye was hired in the late 1970s to build a pair of courses at the resort.

The above passage is an edited extract from Golf Resorts of the World – The best places to stay and play by Brian McCallan.

Feature holes on the Mountain course include the left doglegged 4th, the par three 5th and the 400-yard uphill 6th whilst, on the back nine, the signature hole 16th (played downhill to a Dye-trademark island green) is a par three where some golfers might think it’s worth an 18-hole green fee just to play this one hole.