The Mountain Course was not supposed to be the story at PGA WEST.
Like so many others, we had come to La Quinta for the Stadium Course (you can read our first person review of that here). For the island green, the petition, the desert monster that professionals refused to play twice. That was the round we had talked about on the plane and it was the round we were still talking about that evening, in the way you talk about something that has just been done to you. And then, at 8 o’clock the following morning, still carrying all of that, we stepped onto the Mountain Course.
You cannot plan a better introduction: 24 hours is exactly the right amount of time for a Pete Dye course to work its way into your hands and your head. Playing these two back to back does something no single round can. It shows you the same architect thinking two entirely different thoughts, and it shows you which of those thoughts he had first. He built this one first, you see. Before the Stadium, before Alcatraz, before he became the man who made grown professionals sign a petition against him, Dye came to this stretch of desert and built the Mountain Course. Everything he did later in the Coachella Valley came because of what happened here.
Now if you play them the other way round, Mountain then Stadium , you would enjoy. But play them in this order and you get the argument.
Where is the PGA WEST Mountain Course?
The Mountain Course was originally built for the La Quinta Resort, not for PGA WEST. Landmark Land Company bought the resort in 1977, and Dye’s Mountain and Dunes courses opened alongside it at the turn of the 1980s, several years before the same developers broke ground on PGA WEST itself. For most of its life the course was known simply as the La Quinta Resort Mountain Course, and a good deal of the internet still files it that way.
What settled the matter was a change of ownership. In January 2020, Century Golf Partners and Hankuk Industry formed a joint venture and acquired the entire PGA WEST portfolio: nine golf courses, five clubhouses and two private clubs, PGA WEST Private and The Citrus Club.
The Mountain went with it. The La Quinta Resort was not part of that deal and remained with its own owners. So the position today is clean. The Mountain is a PGA WEST golf course, one of five there open to all to play, alongside the Stadium, the Dunes, the Greg Norman and the Nicklaus Tournament. The La Quinta Resort is a separate business and a hospitality partner, and holds no ownership interest in the golf courses.
Book it as the Pete Dye Mountain Course at PGA WEST. If you find it listed under the old resort name, it is the same golf course. It sits at 50-200 Avenida Vista Bonita in La Quinta, California, at the eastern end of the Coachella Valley, with the Santa Rosa Mountains directly behind it.
The Rock Is in Play At PGA WEST
The first thing the Mountain Course does is show you the mountain. Perhaps that’s not a surprise, given the name, but it really does. Not behind the green, the way every other course in this valley does it, the peaks framed prettily beyond the flag like scenery painted on the back wall of a theatre. Here the rock leans over the golf course, like it wants to be a part of things. On the 4th, 5th, 6th, 14th and 15th it is close enough to hit, a wall of stone rising almost vertically out of the desert floor with your ball lying in its shadow, and the thing takes a moment to process.
It is not a view. It is a hazard. Neither of us hit it, though the thought was there on every one of those holes, sitting somewhere behind the swing. A more cautious architect would have moved the routing thirty yards out, kept the rock safely decorative and slept soundly. Dye built the golf into it. That is the tell, and it is the first sign that this is a different man from the one who built the Stadium Course. There, Dye manufactured his intimidation. He dug the water, stacked the railroad ties, sank the bunkers twenty feet below the greens. Here he found something already terrifying and simply moved the golf course closer to it.
What the Stadium Course Does to You
To really understand the Mountain, you have to understand what you are carrying onto the 1st tee. The Stadium Course is an examination. It is loud, confrontational and relentlessly present, and it spends four hours asking whether you truly believe in the shot you are about to hit. Or whether you’re not quite sure. By the time you step onto the 17th, the island green, you are so far inside your own head that a straightforward short iron becomes a referendum on your entire character.
You do not leave a course like that neutral. You leave it scorched. And you arrive the next morning slightly wary, hands still a little tight, expecting the same treatment from the same man. That expectation is the most useful thing you can bring to the Mountain Course, and it is completely wrong.
The 2nd Hole: Not So Fast
The Mountain, it turns out, does not want to be your friend either. The Par-3 2nd played 190 yards from the white tees, which is a serious number before your hands have fully warmed up, and it is one of the hardest holes in the Coachella Valley that nobody outside La Quinta has heard of. Water runs the entire length of the left side. A bunker waits at the back, positioned exactly where a thin one finishes. The only genuinely safe play is to bail out right.
Two holes in, and there it is: the same voice. Dye standing behind you, asking a question.
But the answer is different here, and this is where the two courses part company. At the Stadium, bailing out feels like a defeat, because the whole course is built to make the sensible shot feel like cowardice. On the Mountain, bailing out right feels like exactly what it is. Good golf. There is no shame in it and the course does not sneer at you afterwards.
Same architect. Same question. Entirely different tone of voice.
The 15th: Humility, and Where We Got It
The 15th is a Par-5 that played 502 yards, and Dye hands you a generous fairway from the tee, which is how you know you are going to need it. Miss right and you are on the mountainside. Miss left and you are in a bunker that runs the entire length of the fairway, less a hazard than a piece of geography. The clever play is to swallow the ego, take three shots, avoid all of it, and walk off with a par that feels like a birdie.
We both laid up. Neither of us discussed it. And here is the honest part: I am not sure either of us would have, twenty-four hours earlier. Humility is not a thing you decide to have on a golf course. It is a thing that gets administered to you, and the Stadium Course had spent the previous morning administering it in quantity.
We arrived at the 15th already educated. Already willing to take the three shots. Already, frankly, a little tired of finding out what happens when you don’t. That is what playing them back to back gives you. The Stadium teaches the lesson. The Mountain is where you find out whether it took.
An Island Green With No Water – 16th
The 16th is the best hole on the golf course and the one everybody photographs. It is a downhill Par-3 from a platform tee up in the foothills, played over a field of boulders to a green ringed with sand and rock. It is Dye’s island green idea again, but with desert instead of water, and the desert is no more forgiving. It does not give the ball back either. There was a hot morning wind and I hit eight iron. It pitched on the front and settled 15 feet below the hole, and I two-putted for a par that I am both disappointed and pleased about. And that is the point, though it took me until the car park to work out why.
Twenty-four hours earlier I had stood on a Dye Par-3 of almost identical length, at Alcatraz on the Stadium, and been unable to think about anything except the water. Here, over boulders, with the ball just as capable of being lost, I hit the shot I meant to hit. The hole asked me a question and then, extraordinarily, let me answer it. What makes it is not the shot, though. It is what you can see while you are standing over it. From that tee the whole Coachella Valley opens out below you, La Quinta spread across the desert floor, the mountains falling away on either side, and for a few seconds the golf becomes entirely secondary.
Then you remember the boulders, and it comes back rather quickly. Many have labelled it one of the most memorable Par-3s in California. I would go further, and I would use my own two rounds as the evidence. Alcatraz is the more famous hole and it is the better story. The 16th on the Mountain is every bit as good a golf hole.
Alcatraz frightens you into a swing. The 16th on the PGA WEST Mountain Course makes you want to make one. That is the difference between the two golf courses, and it took one eight iron to find it.
PGA WEST Mountain Course: The Rest
The 17th completes the descent from the mountain, the slope falling hard away down the right, the better angle in from the right side of the fairway. The 18th is a Par-5 dogleg left with two palm trees on the crest of the hill where the fairway turns. The brave line is straight at them, carrying the crest and tumbling down the far slope, leaving a real chance to get home in two. It is a good closing hole because it offers you a choice rather than a punishment, which is a fair description of the entire golf course.
And there is one weakness worth naming. The 10th, 11th and 12th run through housing, three Par-4s of similar length threading past the Spanish Colonial homes of the surrounding neighbourhood, and they are the least interesting golf on the property. But three holes out of eighteen, in a valley where entire rounds are played down corridors of real estate, is a bargain. From the 13th the course turns back towards the mountains and does not look back.
The Clubhouse, the Range and Brian
The Mountain shares a clubhouse with the Dunes and it is one of the best in the valley, a dining room built around a wall of glass looking out over the golf and up to the mountains. Arrive early. It is worth twenty minutes and a coffee before you play.
The range is absurd in the best way. Hitting balls into a mountain backdrop at eight in the morning, with the desert light still low and the heat not yet arrived, is one of the more pleasant ways to spend twenty minutes in golf. Unlike the Stadium range, where the warm-up feels like a briefing before an exam, this one is simply a nice place to stand and swing a club. And a word for Brian, the starter, who was the best we met all week. Welcoming, funny, genuinely useful, and entirely free of the recited script you get at resort courses. A good starter sets the tone. Brian set ours.
The greens were rebuilt in 2023, regrassed to TifEagle Bermuda and expanded by roughly forty per cent to bring them back towards Dye’s original dimensions. That matters here more than it sounds, because these are elevated, mounded surfaces that must be flown rather than run onto. Every extra foot of green is a foot of margin. It is part of a wider restoration across the Dye courses at PGA WEST, with his long-time collaborator Tim Liddy recovering the original shapes at the Stadium and the Dunes as well. The Mountain has benefited quietly.
Conditioning on our visit was excellent. Fairways lush, greens quick and true. The one honest caveat, and it is echoed by others, is the bunker sand, which is not always as deep as you would like.
PGA WEST MOUNTAIN COURSE: A Verdict
Play the Stadium Course. It is famous for a reason and you will not forget it. But play the Mountain the next morning, and pay attention to what happens. At 6,666 yards from the back tees it is not long, and it does not need to be. Its defence is elevation, angle and those small raised greens. Its glory is that it is one of the most beautiful courses we have played that is nowhere near the sea. And its real value, the thing that only reveals itself if you play them in this order, is what it tells you about the man who built both.
The Stadium is Pete Dye proving a point. And we loved it. The Mountain is Pete Dye enjoying himself. We spent one morning being interrogated and the next being shown something extraordinary, and we drove out of La Quinta talking about the wrong course. Everybody does. The Stadium is the one you come for. The Mountain is the one we would go back for.
*For more information or to book a round at PGA West, visit PgaWest.com
*Martin and Sarah Brock were guests of PGA West.
PGA WEST Mountain Course Scorecard
PGA WEST Mountain Course: Key Facts
Course: PGA WEST Pete Dye Mountain Course, formerly the La Quinta Resort Mountain Course
Location: 50-200 Avenida Vista Bonita, La Quinta, California
Region: Coachella Valley, Greater Palm Springs
Designer: Pete Dye
Opened: 1980 to 1981, roughly five years before the Stadium Course. Dye’s first course in the Coachella Valley.
Holes / Par: 18 holes, par 72
Yardage: 6,666 yards from the Black tees
Ownership: Part of the PGA WEST portfolio, acquired in January 2020 by a joint venture between Century Golf Partners and Hankuk Industry, and managed under the Arnold Palmer Golf Management brand
Access: Public. One of PGA WEST’s five resort courses open to all to play, alongside the Stadium, the Dunes, the Greg Norman and the Nicklaus Tournament courses.
Greens: TifEagle Bermuda, rebuilt and expanded by around forty per cent in 2023
Signature Features: The downhill Par-3 16th, played over boulders to a green islanded in desert; mountain rock genuinely in play on the 4th, 5th, 6th, 14th and 15th; elevated plateau greens; long strips of fairway bunkering
Best Time to Play: Late autumn through spring. Book the first tee time. The heat arrives quickly.
Best For: Golfers playing the Stadium Course who want to understand what they have just been through
PGA WEST Mountain Course, Course Map
PGA WEST Mountain Course: Frequently Asked Questions
Should I play the Mountain Course or the Stadium Course?
Play both, and play the Stadium first. The Stadium is the famous test, and the Mountain makes far more sense once you have been through it. If you can genuinely only play one, the Stadium is the round with the story, but a good many golfers enjoy the Mountain more.
Is the Mountain Course part of PGA WEST or La Quinta Resort?
PGA WEST. The old name causes the confusion: it was built for the La Quinta Resort and was long called the La Quinta Resort Mountain Course, but it is a PGA WEST course today and the resort holds no interest in it. Full detail on who owns PGA WEST and how the courses are structured is in our PGA WEST guide.
Who designed the PGA WEST Mountain Course?
Pete Dye. It was his first course in the Coachella Valley, opening around 1980 to 1981, roughly five years before he built the Stadium Course.
Is the PGA WEST Mountain Course open to the public?
Yes. The Mountain is one of PGA WEST’s public-access resort courses, open to all to play with advance booking. It is not one of the property’s private members’ clubs.
How long is the PGA WEST Mountain Course?
6,666 yards, par 72, from the back tees. It is notably shorter than the Stadium Course, and its difficulty comes from elevation, angles and small raised greens rather than length.
Is the Mountain Course easier than the Stadium Course?
Yes, meaningfully. The Stadium is one of the hardest resort courses in America. The Mountain is challenging but far more playable, and the trouble is more visible and more avoidable.
What is the best hole on the Mountain Course?
The Par-3 16th. Downhill from a platform tee in the foothills, over a field of boulders, to a green ringed by sand and rock, with the whole Coachella Valley laid out below. A Pete Dye island green with desert in place of water.
Has the Mountain Course hosted PGA Tour events?
No, and it does not pretend to. The Mountain has no significant Tour history, which takes nothing away from it as a resort course. The PGA WEST courses that do host tournament golf are covered in our PGA WEST guide.
