Destination: Palm Springs

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Updated: January 31, 2025

You can’t go wrong when you tee it up at this trio of award-winning courses

By Steve Turcotte, Inside Golf Editor

There is a reason that the Palm Springs, Calif. is one of the hottest destinations for golf. Make that several reasons. There are a variety of golf courses to choose from. The weather is almost always perfect to tee it up, the surrounding scenery is picturesque and there are plenty of places to stay and eat.

This place also called the Coachella Valley is a golfers paradise. When you fly into the Palm Springs Airport and check the local landscape as you circle above the airport, you see golf course after golf course after golf course.

Here are three on the tee to get your trip started:

Indian Wells

Indian Wells: Located in the town it is named after, Indian Wells offers two courses, the Celebrity and the Players. The Celebrity Course is ranked among the best in the country. The Players Course is another award winner but will shut down in March for a major re-model. Both are listed in the top 30 of Golf Magazine’s Best Public Courses You Can Play.

But the Celebrity Course will remain in play and offers just about everything you need in a test of golf. From the pristine conditions to the rolling landscape to the challenging greens, Indian Wells’ Celebrity Course has it all. It is a course that can play as long as you want (over 7,000 yards) or more reasonable to those with higher handicaps (5,280 yards).

This 36-hole golf resort, minutes away from the Palm Springs International Airport, features a magnificent 53,000 square-foot clubhouse and is one of the few properties to have two courses ranked in the Top 25 “Best Municipal Courses in the United States” by Golfweek. The Celebrity Course & Players Course AKA “Beauty and the Beast” have hosted Golf Channel’s Big Break and the PGA’s Skins Game. Located within walking distance from four luxury hotels in Indian Wells, the Indian Wells Golf Resort is ideal for golf tournaments, group outings, dream wedding ceremonies and receptions and especially family weekend getaways.

Desert Willow

Desert Willow: Another resort with two courses with these being called Firecliff and Mountain View. The Firecliff Course has been newly renovated with its expanded putting greens and other changes bringing it back to its original form.

Located in Palm Desert, Desert Willow is a place that keeps golfers coming back because of its two championship courses. They both are as different as their names. Firecliff has plenty of natural hazards and other water features while Mountain View has some sweeping desert views as well as its own water elements.

Managed by KemperSports, Desert Willow also has a terrific practice area and clubhouse that has a little of something for everyone.

The Firecliff course has been recognized nationally for being one of the top resort courses in the country as well as one of the Top Public Courses You Can Play in California. Both courses blend into the local desert surroundings perfectly, just the way the designers drew them up.

Trilogy

Trilogy: After an extensive, multi-million-dollar renovation, Trilogy Golf Club at La Quinta is back as the celebrated golf venue opened for play in December.

Once among the most celebrated public golf courses in the Coachella Valley, Trilogy Golf Club at La Quinta hosted the Skins Game from 2003 to 2006, attracting the game’s biggest stars, including Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Fred Couples, and Annika Sorenstam. However, the club fell on hard times after an ownership change, closing in 2022. But that’s all in the past.

Earlier this year, the residents of Trilogy at La Quinta voted overwhelmingly to purchase the golf course, clubhouse and restaurant. They’ve reverted the club back to its original name, Trilogy Golf Club at La Quinta, and have invested heavily to modernize the facilities and restore the golf club to its former glory. With work nearly completed, Trilogy Golf Club at La Quinta will reclaim its status as a must-play, daily-fee golf course in California’s Coachella Valley.

In addition, the extensive renovation work, players will have the option of playing the course from the original “Skins Tees,” experiencing the course the way Tiger Woods, Fred Couples, and Phil Mickelson did back in its heyday. In fact, the holes all have names on them as you make your way around the 18 holes. The ninth hole is called Funk’s Millions, named for Fred Fun winning a big skin on that particular hole, the par-3 17th is called Tiger’s Waterloo after he knocked it into the water. And the 18th hole is Annika’s Miracle, named when Annika won her skin on that hole.

The club also is renovating the clubhouse which includes a full-service golf shop and its signature restaurant. The clubhouse and facilities are expected to reopen in early 2025. The design and décor will be heavily influenced by the Coachella Valley’s famed mid-century modern aesthetic with thoughtfully planned gathering spaces for friends and families filled with natural light and beauty.