La Quinta Resort & Club (Mountain)

Golf Course Review La Quinta Resort & Club MOUNTAIN La Quinta California

Reviewed by: roarksown1, Playa del Rey

Day Two of our annual desert trip landed us out at La Quinta Resort’s Mountain course – a first for me. I’ve always heard a lot of fun things about this course, and while I wasn’t super impressed on the front nine, the back nine was absolutely stunning.

The Review

We were advised before the round that the course had only recently come out of re-seeding and was taking a bit longer to green up, thus leading to the dreaded Cart Path Only situation. And while the front nine looked a little more yellow than green in many parts of the course, the back nine was very lush and just visually spectacular crammed up next to the mountains and their jutting rock walls. Super cool.

Despite the lack of verdant color on the fairways, the lies were still very good throughout the day so there’s no reason to complain there. Some of the rough areas had a super thick hay that made ball finding nigh impossible – avoid at all costs! But the gentler rough next to the fairways was not too penal at all. Sand traps were good all around but not super fluffy green-side, while the tee boxes were all in very good shape (we played the black tees).

Greens were very nice. Well conditioned, rolling about the same as Shadow Ridge the day before, meaning not overly fast (maybe 10 to 10.5) but very true roll and some fun green complexes to navigate, but nothing super tricked out or wacky. As for the layout, lots of big carries and precise, narrow tee shots on certain holes – very few wide open ‘grip it and rip it’ here. The first few holes on the back nine are narrow due to the housing alongside them, but it opens up beautifully later and the course becomes one with the nature surrounding it.

Additional Thoughts

We had frequent cart service which was nice and the POP was excellent up until around the 15th or 16th hole when we caught the group in front of us who had slowed down for some reason, but overall a pretty great and fun round. They say the Dunes course is inferior to the Mountain course here and of course I will like to find out for myself, but so far would seem to be a tough ask for the Dunes course to beat this one. Don’t let the more ‘pedestrian’ front nine lull you into a false sense of normality before you hit the last 4-5 holes that will really blow you away. Fun.