At Play in the Coachella Valley

Like beautiful birds, women flock together. Whether on vacation, on shopping expeditions or relaxing at spas, women like to get spend time with their friends, having fun and escaping their busy, often over-scheduled lives. Female golfers, in particular, are indulging in “girls’ golf getaways”.

According to the National Golf Foundation, the number of occasional female golfers–women who play between one and seven times a year–has jumped from 2.6 million in 1997 to 4.3 million. Add to this the Sorenstam/Wie factors, and the popularity of the sport translates into a boom in golf trips.

An editor at Travel Agent magazine, Joe Pike said, “Vacations with girlfriends or female relatives are a significant trend. Women are increasingly taking active vacations together and more luxurious vacations than in years past. Travel agents say these getaways are not merely weekend retreats, rather they are between four and seven days long.”

A favorite golf vacation destination is the Coachella Valley in the Southern California desert, where sunny weather 350 days of the year and 115 golf courses make this a golfers mecca. Resorts and spas in Palm Springs and the other glimmering resort cities in the valley–Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, Indian Wells, Desert Hot Springs, La Quinta, Indio and Cathedral City–attract snow birds from November through April, when average high temperatures are 79 to 87 degrees.

Women are attracted to the desert resorts by the stay-and-play packages, and by female-friendly golf courses that offer gender-specific golf clinics and multi-day schools. Of course, they save time for shopping in the boutiques lining the palm-lined boulevards, and for pampering at spas. More than forty full-service spas are found here in the birthplace of American hot springs resorts. “Taking the waters” and relaxing together with body and beauty treatments are part of the fun for tuckered golfers.

Janice Littlefield and her friends came out from Austin, Texas to the Palm Springs area this summer. “Anywhere from two to six of us try to get away two or three times a year for golfing and wine tasting. This time we flew into Ontario and stopped at some wineries in Temecula before heading to Palm Springs where we played every day at different courses. The two Marriott’s Desert Springs courses are definitely favorites, with great water features and picturesque holes. They are also very player friendly with different tees for all levels of golfers. The staff was also wonderful; this is definitely a place we will revisit.

“We played Eagle Falls, which has a great staff and a beautiful new course in Indio. And, we also played Desert Willow in Palm Desert and Trilogy in La Quinta, which had $1 beer day, so that was fabulous! All of these courses have GPS on the golf carts, which we really like because it is so convenient not to have to figure out the yardage. The Coachella Valley is a great place for golf anytime, and especially in the off season as you have the courses to yourself and the fees are reasonable.”

Female-Friendly
Uniquely upscale for a city-owned, public-access club, Desert Willow Golf Resort is the host course for the Desert Chapter of the Executive Women’s Golf Association, a group that plays here weekly. A dazzling amethyst and amber-colored, blown-glass chandelier by sculptor Dale Chihuly and spectacular views of the Santa Rosa Mountains greet players as they enter the 33,000-square-foot clubhouse. Among girl-friendly amenities here are showers, hair dryers and amenities in the ladies locker room, and five sets of tees on the golf courses, making them playable for golfers of all abilities. In fact, Golf for Women magazine chose Desert Willow as one of the Top 50 Courses for Women in 2007.

The Firecliff Course here is a challenging “target” style layout with 110 sandy bunkers fringed with palms and barrel cacti, while the wide fairways and few forced carries on the Mountain View Course provide an easier round for the higher handicapper and the beginning player. November through mid-June, the Palm Desert Golf Academy at Desert Willow offers affordable twice-daily swing clinics; and Sunday afternoon clinics are for women only, led by female instructors.

During the annual American Express-sponsored “Women’s Golf Week” in June at Desert Willow, women get free lessons and clinics, rules and etiquette seminars; networking receptions and parties, golf apparel shows and lots of time on the fairways. Among the Coachella Valley courses participating in the annual event are Trilogy Golf Club at La Quinta and the Faldo Golf Institute at Shadow Ridge Golf Club in Palm Desert.

Marriott’s Shadow Ridge Resort is a good choice for longer golf getaways. One- and two-bedroom, two-bath, condominium-style villas have master suites with living and dining areas, sofabeds and fully equipped kitchens. The soaking tubs and the balconies overlooking the Nick Faldo-designed golf course are welcome retreats after golf. At $199 a night for two, “Fabulous Faldo” packages include accommodations and a round of golf with lunch; or accommodations, unlimited twilight golf and sleeves of golf balls.

Visitors who haven’t been to Desert Springs JW Marriott Resort and Spa in Palm Desert lately will not recognize the newly spiffed-up entrance and the hip, urban-contemporary style atrium lobby. Visitors and resort guests descend from the lobby to the gondola dock from where they cruise a labyrinth of canals winding through a tropical setting. The resort is comprised of nearly 900 rooms and suites, twenty tennis courts, five swimming pools, several restaurants and shops, and two Ted Robinson-designed golf courses, the Palm and The Valley.

Reopened in July after an expansion to 38,000 square feet, the spa at Desert Springs caters to small groups of women, offering a private “spa within the spa” with its own lounge, treatment rooms and showers, giving girls getaway parties complete privacy for après-golf Cryotherapy Sports massages, Desert Glow self-tanners and other signature treatments. Window-wrapped saunas overlook the fairways.

Thousands of trees, mostly palms, and lush landscaping decorate the lakes, ponds and waterfalls on the golf courses. On the 18th hole of the Valley Course, five giant bunkers guard the narrow fairway leading to a bougainvillea-draped lake inhabited by pink flamingoes; waterfalls drop on both sides of the three-tiered green backed by a platoon of palms, a scene reminiscent of a 1940s Busby Berkeley movie set.

Each morning, the resort conducts short-game and full-swing clinics; when booking ahead, players can request an LPGA-certified instructor. Putting practice is fun on “The Greens”, a fanciful, 350-yard, 18-hole pitching and putting course with rolling fairways, doglegs upon doglegs, nasty bits of beautifully landscaped rough and plenty of water.

“Girls Getaway” and “Putt and Pamper” packages are reasons to check in at Rancho Las Palmas Resort and Spa, a sprawling vacation retreat celebrating its 30th anniversary in Rancho Mirage. Six meandering lakes and more than a thousand palms line the Rancho Las Palmas fairways on 27 holes of golf. Women who love tennis as much as golf love this place for the 25-court Peter Burwash International Tennis Center, one of the largest tennis complexes in the West.

French doors open onto private patios and lush gardens from the 444 guest rooms, which have recently been renovated and redecorated by new owners, KSL Resorts, a company famous for such luxury properties as La Costa Resort and the Hotel Del Coronado. KSL is investing $35 million in a revitalization that includes the upgraded guest rooms, the hot new R Bar, the Splash Bar and Grill, and soon to come, a signature fine dining restaurant, a family swimming pool with a “lazy river” and water slides, and a new fitness center.

Rancho Las Palmas is conveniently located across the street from the delightful, park-like shopping and entertainment center, The River, where live music in the amphitheater entertains strolling shoppers and al fresco diners in the evenings.

Where the Pros Play
Golf lovers will gather in the Coachella Valley in October to watch the top twenty female players in the world compete for a million dollar purse at the Samsung World Championship at Bighorn Golf Club in Palm Desert. And in April of 2008, the annual LPGA Kraft Nabisco Championship at Westin Mission Hills Resort and Spa in Rancho Mirage will be one of the premiere events on the LPGA circuit.

A frequent player on the Gary Player- and Pete Dye-designed tracks at Mission Hills, Barbara Hopp owns an online travel company, FridayTravelBug.com. She said, “My girlfriends and I fly down here from Santa Rosa at least once a year. When we can, we get here for the LPGA event to watch the pros, and to play there after the tournament. One of our other favorites is Indian Canyons Golf Resort in Palm Springs, which now has a nice new clubhouse. The hundreds of old palm trees on this course and the setting against the mountains is just gorgeous.

“Indian Canyons is owned by the local tribe of Agua Caliente Indians, who also own the the Spa Resort Casino in downtown Palm Springs. We always end our golf trips there with a sort of ritual in the spa. After taking our time in the steam room and the two saunas, we soak in the private, sunken whirlpool tubs that are fed by hot springs from below the hotel, then we dip into the outdoor mineral pools and have lunch on our lounge chairs.”