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In full bloom

Recent renovations have brought back the natural beauty to Desert Willow’s Mountain View course.

By Joel BeersPublished: November, 2009

Greens, bunkers and water features have been enhanced at Desert Willow's Mountain View course.
Desert Willow Golf Resort knows that the sand giveth and taketh away. While the sandy soil of the desert provides the terrain for dramatic landscaping, it also tends to blow around quite a bit and can adversely affect turf conditions.

In an effort to correct sand erosion on the greens and lake edges of its Mountain View course, the Palm Desert facility recently concluded a nearly $1 million renovation project that restored the course to its original condition and design. The course closed in May and re-opened on October 30.

“When we originally opened in 1998, there wasn’t a whole lot of native vegetation in our desert waste areas and over time so much sand had blown across the course that the greens had gotten progressively smaller and the edges of the lake were starting to erode away,” said Bruce Nation, the property’s director of sales and marketing. “This was an extensive renovation that gets the course back into fabulous condition.”

All 18 of the greens were recontoured, bunker drainage was significantly improved and the edges of the course’s lakes were redefined. Additionally, many of the layout’s waste areas now benefit from more vegetation.

While the changes are mostly aesthetic, the course’s playability will be affected due to the restored greens and major changes to many of the bunker complexes.

Mountain View is an interesting blend between a high-challenge, desert target course (like Desert Willow’s other 18, Firecliff) and more lushly vegetated, water-centric courses in the Coachella Valley. It measures just over 6,400 yards from its most popular blue tees, and water comes into play on nearly half its holes.

The more challenging Firecliff course closes November 7 for reseeding and will open shortly after Christmas.

“We take a little longer to overseed our courses than most of our competitors because we want to allow our golfers to drive right up to their ball,” Nation said. “Desert Willow is almost never cart path only.”

For more information, call (760) 346-7060 or visit desertwillow.com.