Plan Your Buddy Golf Trip for Maximum Enjoyment
Here are four courses of truly memorable desert golf. Each of these courses is famous for unfolding their magic, and your game, with repeat visits.
Mountain Course at La Quinta Resort & Club in California
Serious golfers, and by that is meant the guys who know their way around the best courses, consider this course Pete Dye’s best design anywhere. Aesthetics? It’s nestled at the base of the stunning Santa Rosa Mountains and the whole course winds and curves into stunning visuals at every tee. It has the magic of being super-challenging and yet totally playable from the forward tees.
Features include pot bunkers, unique rock formations, various tee box elevations, and crafty bunkered greens. This is a course that makes you glad that you live within reach of a desert. The par 72 course is playable from 3,741 yards up to 6,666.
You can dial in your room preferences that range from a luxury guest room with mountain views to luxury suites with private pools and hot tubs. When you are not golfing, enjoy an elegant spa, fitness center, tennis court, pool or jaw-dropping hikes around the Santa Rosa Mountains. Hungry? Dine at one of six restaurants ranging from casual to the top-of-the-line. Each with its own bar and signature drinks.
Quintero Golf Club near Phoenix
Ranked among the best public golf courses in America and considered the leading course in Arizona, Quintero gets it right. Brilliantly realized by visionary course designer Rees Jones, Quintero is literally a masterpiece carved like a jewel out of the lush Sonoran desert. It is far enough from any metropolis to preserve its pristine character but close enough for an evening excursion into all the excitement of Phoenix-Scottsdale.
The course ranges from 7200 yards on the championship tees down to 5043 on the forward tees and is built in the same honored tradition as the finest courses anywhere in the world – even the ones impossible to get a reservation on.
Quintero’s must-play course is framed by the insanely beautiful Hieroglyphic Mountains and is known for accommodating the play of all ability levels with as many as nine tees per hole and a banked rough to keep you out of the cacti and on the fairways. Far and away the finest playing surface and bentgrass greens in the southwest, you will remember this buddy golf trip for years.
Reserve a fully appointed luxury vacation condo home or executive loft and enjoy the tranquility and primal beauty of a location that is at once rock and sand desert and lush oasis simultaneously. If you are staying over, you’ll bring in your own food for a “roughing it” experience in a fully-equipped modern kitchen and barbeque. Swimming, hiking and bicycling can all be done practically from your doorstep.
Indian Wells Golf Resort in Palm Springs, CA
It’s bigger than life. The 53,000 square foot clubhouse might give you an idea that this place isn’t cutting corners. The classic course is considered one of the best courses you can play in California, according to Golf Week. It’s old-style, you’ll feel the history of golf in every spectacular twist and it will draw out a game in you that you maybe didn’t know you had. Crossing plunging hills, and par 3’s that will spark the inventor in you. This is a course that is rich in imagination; a perfect mix of challenge and relaxation. Indian Wells classic course may just invigorate the true spirit of golf in you.
Amenities? Indian Wells is almost a city in itself – at least the fun parts. Indian Wells boasts 4 separate resorts & spas, each with their own pools and 4 diamond services and restaurants – all of them nestled in the exclusive Indian Wells community within walking distance of the courses. Just 20 minutes from Palm Springs International Airport, this is luxury that can break out into a party at the drop of a hat – and perhaps the perfect place for a buddy golf trip.
Coral Canyon Golf Course, St. George, Utah
Lavishly spread out right in the middle of the most colorful splendor of southwestern Utah, Coral Canyon is a tournament 7,029 yard par 72 layout that is on most southwestern golfer’s shortlist. Playing on these greens is like walking in a fire opal of greens, blues, and amazing reds. You will be playing within sight of Bryce Canyon’s pink spires and the lush greenery of Zion National Park.
Take on Coral Canyon as a stop on your road trip or stay in St. George and follow the Red Rock Golf Trail that includes as many as 10 courses, all within a 40-mile radius. And since you ARE on a road trip, don’t forget that Las Vegas is less than an hour and a half away.
Amenities are as flexible on your budget as you need. Stay within a gated community on the edge of a green or hole up in town at any of several deluxe accommodations.
It’s your lifetime. Live it.
The most important thing is to design your golf trip for guys for the beauty, challenge, and adventure you’ll experience when you visit world-class golf courses that you could not get to on a weekend near your home. Find new inspiration in every hole that dares you to unlock its secrets and beat it. How can your game not improve?
And of course, you and your buddy will have stories to tell for as long as you are still in the game.