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GOLF RESOURCE GUIDE:
The Golfing Nomad
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 Before we smack you with the haymaker, just remember: Escena Golf Club is a feast for the eyes. It has some of the longest, widest, grandest vistas of any course in the Coachella Valley. It’s in apple pie shape, it’s easy to get to, and the tony 1950s-modern clubhouse bar and grill has become a favorite local destination in its own right. In fact, you’re probably going to like nearly everything about it. With the possible exception of the 99 bunkers. Count ‘em. Or, better, try like crazy to avoid them. They’re everywhere. Big, yawning monster bunkers. Insolent little pot bunkers. Bunkers that look like huge amoebas. Bunkers that can swallow your car. Gathering bunkers artfully planted with local desert vegetation that border fairways for more than 150 yards (the staff calls them “landscaping features,” but when your ball is rattling around in one of them, they’re bunkers). But don’t let the fact that there’s more sand out there than in the exodus scene in “The Ten Commandments” keep you from enjoying this nifty oasis just inside the Palm Springs city limits. Just polish up your sand wedge, spend a little time crashing around in the thoughtfully provided practice bunker, then head out and whale away. Because you actually can whale away, at least on several of the longer holes. Because in addition to all that sand, there’s also a lot of grass—the short, beautifully cut fairway kind that gives you plenty of landing area. And, perhaps more important, all that grass gives you the luxury of choice—you can opt to court danger or you can skirt it and still score. Visually, this is a classic desert course: a rambling, gently undulating layout by Nicklaus Design that’s planted with tall Mexican fan palms, pepper trees and smaller native trees. The 7,173-yard par-72 track reopened three years ago after being closed for a time, and there are bits of the whole—most specifically concrete cart paths—that remain unfinished. And the practice facility is not a range but a bay in which players hit into netting. This really matters not at all. This is a place where you can opt to take it on the chin during one round and come back the next day and take it much easier. Five tees help you achieve this. The par-5 opening hole, a really spectacular piece of work, is a good example. It plays 611 yards from the tournament tees, and there is a clutch of nasty small bunkers on the right and larger ones on the left lurking for your tee shot. Play the more forward tees, however, and those bunkers can be taken mostly out of play. Water appears on six holes (though not necessarily in play), and the par-5 18th is a wonder of landscaping, imaginative design, use of water and strategic placement of bunkers (one of which is in the dead center of the fairway). Imagination is needed to play this course properly. Part of your reward for that work comes in the Escena Lounge & Grill, the sort of place the Rat Pack would have loved. Designed along the spare, modernistic, sleek lines of much of the desert architecture of the 1950s, it features a large and inviting semicircular bar and a menu that includes such uncommon appetizer items as filet mignon beef skewers, chicken breast sliders and dinner entrées such as poached pear and candied almond salad, salmon ceviche, sand dabs and crab-crusted Pacific halibut. A bonus: The Palm Springs airport is right across the street. To book a tee time, call (760) 778-2737 or go to escenagolf.com. Green fees start at $60. |
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