Desert Cool

You can keep your Ray Romanos and the foggy Monterey coast. Give me Hoagy, Dino, Gleason and Indian Wells in the spring. Give me skinny ties and Tiparillos, and Arnie lapping the field at the 1960 Palm Springs Classic—back before Bob Hope lent his name to the event. Give me cactus-green polyester, winter tans and balls that couldn’t out-roll O’Hare’s runways. Give me a pack of desert rats who liked their golf the same as the flowering jasmine that carpets the Coachella Valley every spring: dry and sweet, with the day’s golf capped off by a prime rib so red it would rival their sunburned cheeks. “That’s desert cool,” I announced, peering down Frank’s driveway at the gorgeous mid-century modernist home. “That’s retro, baby.”

Frank Bogert, Palm Springs’ mayor from 1958 to 1966, remembers when golf arrived in the dunes of Riverside County. “Tennis and horses were the big draw,” Bogert says. “I was traveling the country to promote my dude ranch and everyone kept asking why there was no 18-hole course in Palm Springs.” Bogert got in touch with Johnny Dawson (a top amateur of the era), and “got an 18-holer built on chewing gum and loans from an insurance company.”

Designed by Lawrence Hughes, Thunderbird Country Club, with its red fescue grass (later changed to rye/Bermuda), was where golf-crazed celebrities first came to nest. Hope and Crosby bought lots bordering the course. Tamarisk Country Club, Indian Wells and Eldorado soon followed. “You can thank Thunderbird for golf carts,” Bogert adds. “We had a member from Texas with a bum leg who got permission from the board of directors to use a gasoline-powered thing that four guys had to sit on to keep steady. He brought in a doctor’s note to convince the board he really needed it.”