The Valley has changed a bit since Thunderbird’s
heyday. Golf carts
are a multi-million-dollar industry and they’re sold
throughout the
mini-malls that now blanket Highway 111. There are more than 450
miles
of fairways and 113 courses, one course for every mile-and-a-half of land
area. Cathedral City, Coachella, Desert Hot Springs, Indian Wells,
Indio, La
Quinta, Palm Desert, Palm Springs and Rancho Mirage are nine
distinct cities
housing more than a quarter of a million people. (The
rumor that all 320,000
inhabitants play PGA West on weekends is, so
far,
unsubstantiated.)
Yet the past also lingers in the desert. Lounging
poolside at the
Hotel Mojave, the day before my round at the Michael
Hurdzan/Dana
Fry-designed Desert Willow, I expected Gable and Lombard to jog out
for
a swim. The Mojave’s canopied citrus trees and two dozen 1940s-themed guest
rooms yield the same breathtaking views of the Santa
Rosa and
San
Jacinto Mountains that have graced vintage golf
photos for
the last half-century. Jigsaw-cut into a wispy, azure sky, their
clean
lines echo the retro-modern design craze that has taken hold of the
Valley.
“Albert Frey was the most noted architect of desert
modernism,”
explains Jay Ramstead, general manager of Palm Springs’ Orbit In.
“We
have a room with an outdoor shower that looks up at the mountain house where
Frey lived.”
My wife had ogled the rows of desert-modern
furniture stores lining
Palm Canyon
Drive. Shopkeepers there said 1960s-inspired motor
hotels, like the Tiki-themed Caliente Tropics Resort, were doing
turn-away
business. Ramstead explained that Orbit In’s Oasis and
Hideaway properties were
restored four years ago with furniture pieces
from famed retro designers Charles
Eames, Harry Bertoia and George
Nelson. “Our most requested room is the Rat Pack
Suite,” he says with a
smile. “Guests say it reminds them of their parents’ home
from the
1960s.”
Connecting with my inner baby-boomer was job number
one at Desert
Willow’s Firecliff Course in Palm Desert. The mile-long drive to the
clubhouse sweeps past native desert Acacias and Chuperosa shrubs,
setting the
tone for a challenging track. The Frank Sinatra Celebrity
tournament is played
from Firecliff’s 7,056-yard back tees, on greens
that run 9.5 on the stimpmeter.
Tight, contoured Bermuda fairways and
more than
100 bunkers make birdies (and perhaps pars) at Firecliff as
scarce as the smoke
trees are plentiful. With steep green fees for a
city-owned course ($165 in high
season), the experience needs to
replicate a private club, and the Desert Willow
staff surpasses
expectations.
Opened in February 2003, Trilogy at La Quinta is
another
natural-terrain throwback replete with generous fairways and
true-rolling greens. The rye/Bermuda grass course features six sets of
tees, if
you include the 7,068-yard tips from where the heavily
marketed Skins Game is
contested. Trilogy is a fun, playable track.
With only 58 bunkers and little
OB, its main defense is the red
fountain shrub
grass that lines fairways. A leisurely course routing
allows for the build-out
of 1,200 retirement homes. But with less than
10 percent of the lots filled,
Trilogy currently meanders quietly
through 160 acres of La Quinta’s southeastern
cove, with spectacularly
unrestricted desert views. The par-3 sixth is
back-dropped by the Santa
Rosa Club, Trilogy’s version of retro heaven. Complete
with cyber café,
grand living room and outdoor firepit, the structure is an
oasis of
desert modernism, and a stylish capper to my breezy
three-and-a-half-hour round.
