Palm Springs and its sister communities in sunny southern California’s Coachella Valley are proud of their stars, and they want you to know it.
Drive from Indio, on one end of the valley, to Palm Springs on the other and you’ll find Gene Autry Trail, Kirk Douglas Way and Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Dinah Shore and Fred Waring Drives, among a cast of others.
A bronze statue of Sonny Bono – Cher’s life and singing partner until their marriage went off key, and later mayor of Palm Springs – can be found in the city’s downtown historic district, where large stars set into sidewalks honor silver screen legends large and larger. A visitor can eat where Sinatra ate, worship where Sinatra worshipped, pay respects at the grave where Ol’ Blue Eyes rests. Even the house where Sinatra once lived with then-wife Ava Gardner can be rented by visitors wanting the quintessential Palm Springs experience.
Of course, there is a three-night minimum at $2,600 per, so the rental is a bit pricey, but it does come with a sink chipped by a champagne bottle thrown by an irate Sinatra during a dust-up when Gardner showed up by surprise trying to catch him with Lana Turner. You can’t get that at a Holiday Inn.
But for those of us with simpler needs – and by that I mean golf, of course, especially in the death-grip of winter – the real stars come with emerald green fairways and greens, white sand bunkers and blue lagoons, all set against sugar-frosted mountains in every direction. Myrtle Beach makes a case for being America’s golf capital, and Florida has its own argument, but with well over 100 courses and near perpetual sunshine in which to enjoy them, the Palm Springs area is hard to beat.
There are short courses and long, public courses and private. There are tourist-friendly layouts and others that are tournament tough. And while there are affordable courses there are also courses you can play for merely the cost of a semester’s tuition at a state school.
Of course, that’s only in high season. In summer, when desert temperatures routinely exceed 100 degrees, green fees plummet for those willing to take on the elements as well as the golf course.
“In the summertime,” said Robert Burke, the Madison native who is now head pro and general manager at Cathedral Canyon Golf and Tennis Club, “a lot of places pay you to come play golf.”
He was kidding, I think, but it is true that when temperatures rise, the rates at even the high-end courses go way down. Even so, Burke said, “Last year in August I can remember a couple of days when I had no golfers at all.”
That’s why I went in February. If there were occasional waits on the tee, it only gave me time to reflect on the forecast for 14 below at home. And to smile.
The area often referred to as Palm Springs is actually a sprawling valley with eight resort communities, including the well-known Rancho Mirage, La Quinta and Palm Desert. It gained fame in the 1930s as the getaway of choice for Hollywood’s biggest names, in part because of its weather, but also because the studios at that time had a “two-hour rule” requiring stars to be within a two-hour drive of the set in the event of a director’s call.
Most visitors today are more likely to watch movies than make them. The population of the Coachella Valley swells in winter, primarily due to snowbirds from northern California, the Pacific Northwest and Canada, but also from the Midwest, East Coast and Europe. At Indian Wells, my wife and I were paired with Peter and Peter, Austrians who had flown 12 hours from Munich to Los Angeles to find open fairways, and who were polite enough to curse bad shots in their native tongue.
“Peak season,” said David Zickau, another Madison native who is head pro at Indian Palms CC in Indio, “is usually mid-January, when the Bob Hope is, through Easter. That’s why we love it here, I guess. There’s three months of brutal weather (in summer), but no seven months of snow.”
Golf arrived in the desert in a serious way in 1951 when amateur golfer Johnny Dawson opened Thunderbird CC, the valley’s first 18-hole layout. Some laughed at the idea of golf in the scrubby desert outside Palm Springs, according to a story in FORE magazine, but Dawson had the last laugh.
By 1955 Thunderbird hosted the Ryder Cup, and Bob Hope, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez and other stars bought homes around the course. More courses followed, and golfers came to keep them busy. By the 1980s, it was said a new course opened for play every 100 days, and today every prominent golf course architect is represented by at least one course. Professional tournaments like the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, the former Dinah Shore (now the Nabisco Championship) and the Skins Game keep the spotlight on Palm Springs golf at a time when much of the country ranges from chilly to frozen.
“As far as golf is concerned in the valley,” said Burke, “there’s just a wide variety.”
And so there is, from ritzy PGA West with its three high-end courses, including the TPC Stadium course, to the new Arnold Palmer Classic Course at SilverRock Resort, home of the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, to Indian Wells, where a recent $45 million renovation has produced two superb challenges. The John Fought-designed Players Course, which opened in November 2007, has stunning views of mountains in every direction, while the Clive Clark-designed Celebrity Course, with similar mountain backdrops, hosted the 2007 LG Skins Game. The starter will tell you that the greens are fast and all putts break toward Indio, and at least half of that proved all too true.
Both Zickau and Burke are at 27-hole resort courses that include a residential community, lodging and interesting back-stories. Cathedral Canyon, where Burke has been for five years, is owned by Lawrence Welk’s company and initially served as the main draw for timeshare sales.
Indian Palms began in the 1930s as the ranch getaway of aviatrix Jackie Cochrane and her husband, Floyd Odlum, who through the years entertained everyone from Marilyn Monroe and Amelia Earhart to presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, to keep a very long list fairly short. Eisenhower was said to have worked on his memoirs while staying at the ranch, which eventually was turned into Indian Palms, a fun layout that demands accuracy because of housing along most fairways.
Burke and Zickau offered tips for first-time visitors who might be a bit overwhelmed by the 127 – and counting – golf options.
“First,” said Zickau, “check the Internet; just search golf in the Palm Desert area. Know the area that you’re (staying) and pick your price level.”
Burke agrees on the budget advice. “If you want to play Indian Wells ... you’re going to be paying $195, and if you want to play PGA West you’re going to be paying (even more).” It might be good, he said, to pick one premium course and then others with lower green fees. And watch for specials. For example, I paid just $50 to play Indian Palms by waiting until “twilight” rates began at 1 p.m.
“To me they’re all great,” said Burke, who said slow summer traffic has allowed him to play all across the valley. “I really can’t say anything bad about any of them.”
For those who want more than just golf, the valley offers a wide range of activities. Hiking is popular in nearby Joshua Tree National Park, San Jacinto and Santa Rosa National Monument, historic Indian Canyons and the Coachella Valley Preserve. A big hit with visitors is the Palm Springs Aerial Tram, a cable car that takes passengers some 8,500 feet from the desert floor to the dizzying reaches of Mt. San Jacinto.
In Palm Springs, the Moorten Botanical Garden is a living museum with more than 3,000 desert cacti and plants, while in nearby Palm Desert the mission of the 360-acre The Living Desert is to showcase the plants and animals of the world’s deserts.
More conventional museums include the Palm Springs Air Museum, which focuses on World War II combat aircraft and pilots, and the Palm Springs Art Museum, which features contemporary California art and Western American, Native American, Mexican and other works. Downtown Palm Springs is known for its shops and restaurants in a setting of Spanish-style architecture. The statue of Sonny Bono is across the street from the historic Plaza Theatre, home of the popular “The Fabulous Palm Springs Follies,” a celebration of music, dance and comedy of the 1930s and ’40s, performed by a cast said to be old enough to have lived that era.
Palm Springs and the other desert communities are about two hours from both San Diego and Los Angeles. For more about Palm Springs, contact the Bureau of Tourism at (760) 778-8415, e-mail
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or visit www.palm-springs.org.
For more about other communities in the Coachella Valley contact the Convention and Visitors Bureau at (800) 967-3767 or visit www.palmspringsusa.com.
