4 Days in the Valley-Day 1
Recently I had the opportunity to play golf in Palm Springs. I am a native New Englander and although I have traveled to a lot of different golf destinations, Palm Springs is still my favorite. While in Palm Springs I had the opportunity to play three great private courses; The Reserve, The Hideaway and Stone Eagle.
On day one of my trip I played at the 36-hole private facility, The Hideaway.the The two course designers for the Hideaway are Pete Dye and Clive Clark. I have had the opportunity to play the Clark course on an earlier visit and was greatly impressed, but on this day I would be playing the Dye 18.
The Hideaway is a unique golfing experience for one simple reason, it is easily a 2,000 calorie round. You start off with a smoothie if you so desire on the first tee. When you make the turn, delicious sliders are cooked to order. But that is not all. Comfort stations await with peanut butter and crackers, several different types of ice cream bars, candy, drinks and munchies. When members talk about their growing membership they could be referring to their waist lines.
Of the four days that I played in Palm Springs, these greens were some of the hardest to read. The grain of these greens played such a huge role in determining your roll. Our caddie was helpful and obviously understood the greens, but for a guy who had played one round of golf in the past five months it was a rude awakening. I opened up my round with two-three putts. The landing areas offer ample room off the tee, but the swirling wind and the open environment can take any mis-hit shots and bring you into spots you don’t want to be.
On the front side the par five 7th hole was memorable. This three shot hole is particularily difficult when the breeze is against. Water is on the right side so hopefully your lay-up leaves you with a short club in your hand. The green’s grain is tricky with it going from front to back. The back 9 has some challenging par fours but the one that will make you think off the tee is the par four 15th hole. It’s short at only 324 from the tips, but it has an ominous fairway bunker protecting the green. The 17th is a long par three with water protecting half of the green. I was thankful to walk away with par. The finishing hole is another long par five with water protecting the right side. There is also a lot of sand around the green.
I shot a 90, not great but I was not entirely disappointed as the rating/slope was 72.8/137 and I had numerous three-putts as I tried to get comfortable to the unfamiliar greens. I really liked the course and with a quality 18 holes designed by Clive Clark as an alternative, there is plenty of variety but during this trip I would rank it third out of the three courses that I played. Initiation is $125,000 with the dues at $8,000 a year. When selling this to your significant other I guess the best course of action is to say “But there are TWO courses there so it is a great value” If you have the offer to play there do it.
