Where to Stay in the Desert in 2022

Glow Up

One-of-a-kind amenities and design flourishes — from dramatic flower murals to itty-bitty bowling alleys — make these Greater Palm Springs hotels a cut above the rest.

Courtesy of Derrik J. Lang Palm Springs Life

Desert Circuit Equestrian Events

January 2022 Desert Circuit

The Desert Circuit Equestrian Events | Jan. 19-23 & 26-30 | Desert International Horse Park, Thermal The Desert Circuit is eight weeks of USEF Premier-rated Hunters and 5*/6* Jumpers running from mid-January through mid-March with one week off in mid-February. The circuit draws thousands of equestrians to the premier Southern California show grounds.

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Where to Go Surfing Next Year in the Palm Springs Area (Yes, Palm Springs!)

Three wave pools, including one designed by champion surfer Kelly Slater, are due to open in the Coachella Valley in 2022 and 2023.

BY KATHRYN ROMEYN

Seeking waves in the parched California desert sounds like the delusion of a stereotypically stoned and sun-bleached surfer, but it’s about to be reality, thanks to three high-tech wave pools coming to the Coachella Valley. This should come as no to shock to Chris Hemsworth, Shaun White, Diplo, and Oscar-winning Free Solo director Jimmy Chin, some of the lucky few who have already had the privilege of surfing 100 miles inland, at Kelly Slater’s invite-only Surf Ranch in Lemoore, California (not far from Fresno).

Surf Ranch is the prototype for Slater’s newest project: a wave pool at Coral Mountain, a community planned for La Quinta, California, that will include a 150-room hotel, wellness spa, and single-family homes starting in the high $2 millions. “Coral Mountain is meant to be a well-rounded sports and wellness community for the entire family,” says Michael B. Schwab, founder of Big Sky Wave Developments, which, with Meriwether Companies, is behind the 400-acre project. “A surf destination will complete the surrounding golf, tennis, event venues, and hiking and biking trails already existing in the area.”

Designed by Kelly Slater Wave Company, Coral Mountain’s half-mile wave basin — projected to open in 2023 and powered by green energy — hopes to create the world’s tallest and longest human-made wave. It also will have extended bays for surfers who are far from professional. “A novice can learn to surf on the same day a professional surfer has one of the best surf days of their life,” says Schwab. (While wave pools lose significant water to evaporation, developers point out that they use significantly less H2O annually than golf courses.)

Whereas Coral Mountain will be reserved for residents and hotel guests only, The Palm Springs Surf Club — set to open in June — represents a democratization of the wave pool. “We cater for everyone,” says creative director Jamo Willis. “We want all people to come and learn to surf and get that first wave or that first barrel and just be so excited because they had that experience that might [otherwise] take years. In two days of surfing, you get more waves than in half a year, and that gives you the confidence to get out there in the ocean.” According to Willis, there are 1.2 million surfers living within a two-hour drive of Palm Springs.

The upscale surf resort, with a vibe Willis describes as a blend of Mykonos, Tulum, and the Sahara desert, will feature not only the pool — which uses pneumatic air-chambered Surfloch technology to create waves — but also restaurants, bars, cabanas, lap pools and a beach club. “We wanted to build something a wave park has never had before,” says Willis, “and that’s creating more of a lifestyle experience around the pool, not just for surfers but for everyone.” He likens the beginner section to a green run at a ski resort, with double-diamond-like waves for advanced wave riders

DSRT Surf is the third concept proposed for the area, featuring waves in a diamond-shaped pool by The Wavegarden Cove, a boutique hotel, skate park, recovery center, restaurants and access to Desert Willow golf courses, projected to open on 18 acres in Palm Desert in 2023. The pool will also have dedicated hours for stand-up paddle-boarding, kayaking and bodysurfing.

The appeal of these pools — beyond the obvious perk of consistently flawless waves — is that there are “no crazy tides, no sharks and no dangerous reef. Everything people worry about, it’s not there,” says Willis. And unlike in, say, Malibu or Manhattan Beach, “there’s nobody dropping in on you, which takes a lot of the stress out.”

A version of this story first appeared in the Dec. 1 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.

PGA WEST’S new ownership is busy restoring ‘The Western Home of Golf in America’

Martin Kaufmann November 8, 2021 10:55 am ET 

From the moment we first glimpsed PGA WEST at the “Skins Game” 35 years ago, we all knew that we had witnessed something transformative. Viewers couldn’t help but marvel at how land so rugged and unforgiving could be transformed into something so beautiful and seductive, ultimately luring an untold number of golfers from around the world to California’s Coachella Valley over the past 35 years.

PGA WEST quickly earned a moniker – “The Western Home of Golf in America” – that reflected the fact that all of the major professional tours and the NCAA regularly visited, allowing the game’s best players to test themselves against some of the stiffest designs of Pete Dye, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Tom Weiskopf, and Greg Norman. It also became a bucket-list destination for avid golfers and an attractive landing spot for couples looking to enjoy the good life in the desert.

Last year Century Golf Partners, an established operator of high-end clubs and resorts, teamed with Hankuk Industry, which owns courses in the U.S. and Japan, to acquire PGA WEST and The Citrus Club, including the Mountain and Dunes golf courses. That set off a whirlwind of activity, with the new ownership pouring resources into course improvements on all nine PGA WEST courses. The goal of this long-term project is three-fold: provide tournament conditions daily; bring more big tournaments to the property; re-establish PGA WEST as a must-visit destination with courses that are fixtures on top-100 lists.

“We want to secure our position in the top five of U.S. club resorts in the U.S.,” said Ben Dobbs, PGA WEST’s Executive Director. “We have the architects, the properties and the location to achieve this. Having iconic golf courses and great architects were just the beginning. Now we must be innovative, relevant and provide exceptional experiences.”

That attitude is reflected in the recently completed work on the Greg Norman Course, which opened in 1999. Greens were restored to their original sizes, and the TifDwarf Bermuda grass was replaced with TifEagle, which eventually will be installed at each course, creating optimal year-round conditions. In addition, more than 100 bunkers were rebuilt, the expansive native areas were restored, and turf was added to enhance playability on the brutal target-golf layout.

PGA WEST has also made a major commitment to deep-tine aerification equipment, ensuring healthier turf conditions. Each course is being aerified twice annually.

“Ultimately, we’ll have firmer greens and the ability to mow them lower,” said Chris May, Director of Agronomy, who will guide the eventual restoration of all nine courses. “We want tournament conditions on all of these courses before and after overseeding. The benefit of doing all of this work is they get in really good shape in the summer as well.”

The work on the Norman Course follows the restoration last year to the Jack Nicklaus Tournament Course – which pairs with PGA WEST Pete Dye Stadium when the PGA TOUR visits each January to play The American Express – and work this year on the Arnold Palmer Private Course.

The latter, with its finishing holes sculpted along the rugged Santa Rosa Mountains, produced some of the most memorable moments of the PGA Tour’s West Coast Swing, including David Duval’s closing eagle in 1999 to shoot 59 and win the tournament. The course has never been in better shape. May’s team installed TifEagle putting surfaces over new greens irrigation, restored all greenside bunkers to original specifications, and replaced all of the bunker sand.

Brandon Johnson, the long-time senior architect for Arnold Palmer Design, returned to La Quinta to revitalize the picturesque finishing holes along the All-American Canal. Johnson put in new bunkering on Nos. 14 and 16 to create more differentiation between those approaches and added a knob on the back of the par-5 14th that presents a new risk-reward scenario for players trying to reach in two. “It definitely has a par-5 green now,” May said.

Johnson restored the other greens to their original contours, recapturing Palmer’s original vision.

“He tied together the whole course with one type of look,” May said.

PGA WEST’s executive team will face interesting choices on the Pete Dye Stadium Course, unquestionably one of Dye’s masterpieces. May guarantees “a restoration, not a renovation,” including recapturing the original green shapes and sizes.

“Every idea that Pete had is on this golf course,” May said. “It’s remarkably untouched – partly because it’s always been so busy that they weren’t able to do the work. We want to bring it back to what it once was.”

While May’s team is busy on the course upgrades, Dobbs also is overseeing enhancements to the five clubhouses and amenities. Those amenities include a recently opened $10 million Sports Club.

“Our owners have committed to owning us for generations, so that helps our team make long-term decisions,” Dobbs said. “I’m super-excited to be able to share everything that we are doing with golfers from around the world.”

The AMERICAN EXPRESS – January 19 – 23, 2022

The AMERICAN EXPRESS

Where the stars come to play at PGA WEST - La Quinta Country Club, La Quinta, CA