Golf Scrapbook Blog (The Other Ones)

Indian Wells: Celebrity and Players Courses

Played Indian Wells in 2012 as part of a conference with my buddy Ron as a bonus round on Celebrity and as part of the conference on Players (a shotgun where I played with Ron, Mike and Will and got to start on one). It was the first and remains the only time I’ve ever been in the Palm Springs area and since we stayed at the resort (not sure if we stayed at the Hyatt or the Renaissance) and didn’t venture out for meals or whatnot, I can’t tell you much about the area.

As you see from the photo above, with Indian Wells you get a lot of eye candy. The courses were in great shape and were fun desert courses (in that you weren’t like Moses wandering in the desert for 40 days looking for your golf balls). The resort straddles a wash and you need to take a bridge across it to get to the opening holes for both courses. Both courses finish back across on the resort side of the wash but Celebrity has its entire back nine on this side while Players only has two holes. If you look at the scrapbook, you’ll see both courses (page 21) – the square numbers are the Celebrity course holes. You’ll also see a photo of my 343-yard drive on the 416-yard, number two handicap 15th hole on the Celebrity course. I birdied the hole. The drive was cart path aided. A lot of cart path aid, in fact. But it dawned on me how different golf must be if you can hammer drives out 300+ yards regularly. I shot a respectable 89 for me on Celebrity but a really good 84 on Players and was part of a tournament so was a super legit score.

Indian Wells is a muni. Usually you can’t spell turd farm without muni in the title. There are notable exceptions, so the best muni’s I’ve played:

Torrey Pines (I’ll include both courses as both are top 100)
Bethpage Black
Chambers Bay
Trump Ferry Point (yes it’s a muni)
Indian Wells (Players and Celebrity)

I’ll give honorable mentions to the above to TPC Scottsdale courses and Harding Park – though the latter is pretty well below the others and am not sure if some of the other public courses on my list are muni’s or just public/resort. And a lot of international courses could be considered muni’s I guess and not sure which is which so didn’t include any. UPDATE: Golf Magazine ranked these in this new article here: https://golf.com/travel/courses/americas-30-best-municipal-golf-courses/?utm_campaign=forecast&utm_source=golf.com&utm_medium=email&utm_content=%7Bdate%28&utm_term=GOLFcom%20Top%20Stories%20Newsletter.

So there are a lot of downright crappy muni’s and since I’m not sure which of the ones on the bottom of my list are muni’s or not, I’ll just give you the bottom five worst golf courses I’ve ever had the displeasure of playing:

Latona (Buena, NJ): Even though my dad at one point belonged to six different private clubs, he was a pretty indiscriminate golfer yet even he used to call this a cow pasture. So why did we play it? If he wanted to get an early time on a shore weekend, it was either Ponderlodge (now closed and almost as bad) or this nine holer. Even their website is shitty (you know if you acknowledge Chaz Computer Repair as your web designer you’re not getting some digital brilliance: https://www.latonacountryclub.com/)
John F. Byrne (Philly muni): You might as well play on Roosevelt Boulevard instead of this rock hard, bucket of skunk turds. Alex Findlay designed this and why? This course stretches all the way to 5112 from the back! Granted I haven’t played this in probably 30 years but there’s a good reason for that.
Flying Hills (Reading, PA): I hate when houses are so close to a course that they impact your strategy. Then there’s Flying Hills. I swear from the second hole tee there was someone whispering on their deck and we heard every word. Their signature hole features an apartment building behind the green – not even a half club behind the green mind you. Some dude in his boxers and wifebeater was on the patio watching (nice gallery). They should call this place Flying Glass.
Fairways Golf (Warrington, PA): Another residential course with houses coming so close into play that they have ugly netting up in multiple areas. Fairways is a monster – a whopping 4,503 yards from the only men’s tees. They call it Fairways because the first cut, the fairways, the greens etc. all feature the same shaggy grass.
Cobbs Creek (Upper Darby, PA): I’m skipping a few courses but need to highlight this one. Cobbs features some interesting hazards: empty Colt 45 quarts. Crack vials. Bullet casings. Gangs. The fire was best thing to ever happen to the clubhouse. Now Cobbs (and its equally ugly sister course Karakung) has some decent bones and there is a push to combine the two and restore Cobbs to become a destination muni. You have to burn down Upper Darby first though.

But I REALLY digress. Back to Indian Wells. Don’t remember a lot. Five and eighteen on Players stick out. Eight on Celebrity does too though if I look at the website it’s the fourth there so not sure whether I fucked up or they changed the routing. Anyway it’s a great par five where you set up your third to an island green. Tough hole. Bring your camera and enjoy, both courses are fun. Can’t say what other public or resort options should be part of a trip but I guess I’ll plan to go back when I fit the area demographic a little better – maybe in my 70’s. BTW, I’m not sure which photos belong to which course below.