PGA WEST has no fewer than nine golf courses. That’s not a golf club, it’s a kingdom.
Its footprint sprawls across La Quinta at the eastern end of the Coachella Valley, 30 minutes past Palm Springs, out where the valley widens and the Santa Rosa Mountains start holding the horizon down. Nine courses. Pete Dye, Jack Nicklaus, Greg Norman, Arnold Palmer and Tom Weiskopf, all of them on one property, which is a collection of names no other place in America can put on a scorecard.
Five of the nine you can play. Four you cannot, unless you know somebody. And almost everyone who comes here plays the same one, for the same reason, and flies home without ever finding out what else was on offer.
That is not entirely their fault. The Stadium Course has a gravitational pull. It has the island green, the Tour history, the professionals who signed a petition to have it thrown off the schedule in 1987. It is the course you have read about, and it is the reason the coach parks are full. But it is one of nine, and it is not the best of them, and the golfers who work that out tend to be the ones who booked two rounds instead of one.
This is a guide to all nine. What they are, who built them, which you can play, and which are actually worth your money.
PGA West Golf Courses: All Nine
PUBLIC ACCESS, OPEN TO ALL
| COURSE | DESIGNER | OPENED | YARDAGE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pete Dye Stadium | Pete Dye | 1986 | 7,300 |
| Nicklaus Tournament | Jack Nicklaus | 1989 | 7,204 |
| Greg Norman | Greg Norman | 1999 | 7,156 |
| Pete Dye Mountain | Pete Dye | 1980 | 6,666 |
| Pete Dye Dunes | Pete Dye | 1980 | 6,578 |
PRIVATE, MEMBERS ONLY
| COURSE | DESIGNER | OPENED | YARDAGE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weiskopf Private | Tom Weiskopf | 1996 | 7,164 |
| Citrus | Pete Dye | 1987 | 7,151 |
| Nicklaus Private | Jack Nicklaus | 1989 | 6,951 |
| Palmer Private | Arnold Palmer | 1986 | 6,950 |
Four of the nine PGA WEST golf courses were designed by Pete Dye, which tells you something about who set the tone here. He arrived first, in 1980, and has never really left.
PGA WEST: Which Course Should You Play?
Here is the thing nobody at the bag drop will tell you: the famous course and the best course are not the same course.
The Stadium is the one you came for, and you should play it. Not because it is the finest golf on the property but because it is an experience you cannot get anywhere else, and because standing on the 17th tee at Alcatraz with water on every side is a thing worth doing once in a life. It is 7,300 yards from the Black tees, it carries a slope of 148, and it will take golf balls from you. It is loud, theatrical, faintly ridiculous and completely unforgettable. Play it, survive it, and take the story home.
The Mountain is the one you will want to play again. Dye got here first, in 1980, before he became the architect who terrified professionals, and what he built is shorter, kinder and considerably more beautiful. The Santa Rosa rock is genuinely in play on five holes, close enough to hit. Its Par-3 16th, played downhill over a field of boulders to a green islanded in desert, is a better golf hole than Alcatraz and it is not especially close. Most people who play both walk off the Mountain happier, and then spend the drive home talking about the Stadium anyway.
The Dunes is the Mountain’s quieter sibling, opened the same year, sharing the same clubhouse, and at 6,578 yards the gentlest golf on the property. If you are playing 36 in a day, this is the pairing: Mountain in the morning while it is cool, Dunes in the afternoon when your hands have gone.
The Nicklaus Tournament is for the good player who wants a proper examination without the psychological warfare. At 7,204 yards it is nearly the Stadium’s equal in length, it co-hosts The American Express, and Nicklaus asks fairer questions than Dye ever did. Low handicappers frequently prefer it. It does not try to embarrass you.
The Greg Norman is the odd one out, and that is its appeal. The newest course here, finished in 1999, and the only Norman design in the whole Coachella Valley. It is a target-style desert layout with barely sixty acres of turf, nine ponds and native grasses running silver in the light. Narrow, exposed and nothing like the Dye courses. If you have three rounds and want variety rather than another walk through the same architect’s imagination, this is your third.
And if you are not a good golfer, play the Dunes or the Mountain and let the Stadium be somebody else’s problem. There is no medal for suffering, and the desert is quite capable of beating you without help.
Stadium or Mountain: The Round Most People Are Choosing Between
If it comes down to two, it usually comes down to these, so here is the honest version from playing them on consecutive mornings.
The Stadium is an examination. Water, railroad ties, the San Andreas Fault bunker sunk twenty feet below the 16th green, Alcatraz at the 17th, and a closing hole with water down the entire left side that has ended careers at Q-School. It is exhausting in a way that is difficult to explain until you have done it. You do not leave that golf course neutral.
The Mountain is a golf course you would happily play every week.
Our advice, and it is specific: play the Stadium first, then the Mountain the following morning. In that order something happens. The Stadium spends four hours administering humility, and the Mountain is where you discover whether any of it stuck. Play them the other way round and you get a nice golf trip. Play them in this order and you get an argument about Pete Dye that you will still be having in the car.
*Full accounts of both: PGA WEST Stadium Course and PGA WEST Mountain Course.
*A note on the other three public course. We have played the Stadium and the Mountain. The Dunes, the Norman and the Nicklaus Tournament are on the list for next time, and we will write about them all in more depth when we have.
Who Owns PGA WEST?
In January 2020 a joint venture between Century Golf Partners and Hankuk Industry acquired the entire PGA WEST portfolio: nine golf courses, five clubhouses and two private clubs, The Club at PGA WEST and The Citrus Club. It is operated under the Arnold Palmer Golf Management brand.
The La Quinta Resort is a separate business and holds no ownership interest in the golf courses.
That last point causes more confusion than anything else about this property, and for a good reason. The Mountain and Dunes were built for the La Quinta Resort in 1980, years before PGA WEST existed, and carried the resort’s name for decades. They came into the PGA WEST portfolio through the 2020 sale. The resort is still a hospitality partner and still the natural place to stay, but the golf and the hotel are now different businesses, whatever the older directories tell you.
How It All Got Here
The whole thing was the work of two men, Ernie Vossler and Joe Walser Jr, whose Landmark Land Company bought the La Quinta Resort in 1977 and put Pete Dye to work beside it. The Mountain and Dunes opened in 1980.
Then came the ambition. The Stadium Course opened in 1986, followed quickly by the members-only Palmer Private. The Bob Hope Desert Classic arrived in January 1987 and put PGA WEST on the map, largely because the professionals loathed the Stadium and had it removed from the rotation for the best part of thirty years. The private Citrus followed in 1987, the two Nicklaus courses in 1989, the Weiskopf Private in 1996, and finally the Greg Norman in 1999.
Nine courses in nineteen years, in a place that was barren desert when they started.
Tournament Golf at PGA WEST
The Stadium and the Nicklaus Tournament host The American Express each January, part of the PGA Tour’s West Coast Swing. The Stadium is the host venue and the only course played more than once during the week, including the final round.
The Stadium also carries PGA Tour Q-School Finals history and was a Skins Game venue between 1986 and 1991, which is where Lee Trevino holed his tee shot at Alcatraz in 1987 and collected a carried-over skin worth $175,000. He had spent the previous January defending the course on television while everyone else complained about it. The desert has a sense of humour.
The Mountain, Dunes and Norman courses have no Tour history worth the name, which says nothing at all about how good they are.
PGA WEST Golf Courses: Plan the Trip
Go between late autumn and spring. The desert in July is not a golf destination, it is a warning. Green fees collapse in summer for exactly that reason.
Book the first tee time you can get. Even in March the heat is up by mid-morning. Eight o’clock and eleven o’clock are two different golf courses.
Choose your tees honestly. This matters more at PGA WEST than almost anywhere. The Stadium runs from 7,300 yards down to 4,084 across six sets, and the difference between the Black and the White is the difference between a day you remember and a day you endure. Nobody is watching. Nobody cares.
Give it more than one round. The single biggest mistake here is flying in, playing the Stadium, and leaving. Two nights and two rounds is the minimum for a property with this much on it. Three is better.
Where it sits. La Quinta is out beyond Palm Springs, Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert and Indian Wells, about thirty minutes from downtown Palm Springs. If you are building a Coachella Valley trip, this is the anchor.
PGA WEST Golf Courses: Frequently Asked Questions
How many golf courses are there at PGA WEST?
Nine. Five are public-access resort courses and four are private members’ courses.
Which PGA WEST courses can the public play?
Five: the Pete Dye Stadium, the Pete Dye Mountain, the Pete Dye Dunes, the Greg Norman and the Nicklaus Tournament. Book in advance, directly with PGA WEST or through a stay-and-play package.
Which PGA WEST courses are private?
Four: the Palmer Private, the Nicklaus Private, the Weiskopf Private and the Citrus Course, reserved for members of The Club at PGA WEST and The Citrus Club.
Who owns PGA WEST?
A joint venture between Century Golf Partners and Hankuk Industry, which acquired the nine-course portfolio in January 2020. It is operated under the Arnold Palmer Golf Management brand. The neighbouring La Quinta Resort is a separate business with no ownership stake in the golf courses.
Which is the best course at PGA WEST?
The Stadium is the most famous and the Nicklaus Tournament the fairest championship test, but a good many golfers who play several rate the Pete Dye Mountain the most enjoyable round on the property.
Which is the hardest course at PGA WEST?
The Stadium Course, comfortably. It plays 7,300 yards from the Black tees with a course rating of 76.0 and a slope of 148. Its original 1986 rating of 77.1 was the highest the USGA had issued at that point.
Who designed the courses at PGA WEST?
Five architects: Pete Dye (Stadium, Mountain, Dunes and Citrus), Jack Nicklaus (Tournament and Private), Arnold Palmer (Palmer Private), Tom Weiskopf (Weiskopf Private) and Greg Norman (Greg Norman Course).
Does PGA WEST host PGA Tour events?
Yes. The Stadium and Nicklaus Tournament courses host The American Express each January, with the Stadium as the host venue.
Is PGA WEST the same as La Quinta Resort?
No, they are separate businesses. The confusion is historical: the Mountain and Dunes courses were built for the La Quinta Resort in 1980 and carried its name for decades before joining the PGA WEST portfolio in 2020.
How far is PGA WEST from Palm Springs?
About thirty minutes. PGA WEST is in La Quinta, at the eastern end of the Coachella Valley.
