It took me a while to get used to the desert when I moved to Southern California from the dark soil-rich Midwest.
Since that time I’ve had numerous opportunities to play and watch golf tournaments in the Coachella Valley and Phoenix-Scottsdale. I’m always intrigued by the eerie beauty of green grass and colorful flora growing out of sand and rocks and the 3-D effect of the mountains when staring in the distance.
Visiting the Palm Springs area, as it’s commonly called, is the focus of this month’s issue. Writer and Palm Desert resident Judd Spicer does the honors with three articles: one on the completion of the North Course at Toscana Country Club in what will be the first championship layout to open in the Coachella Valley in eight years; an interview with longtime Desert Sun golf writer Larry Bohannan, whose new book examines the history of the game in the area; and a cover-all-the-bases piece on some of the cool things to do in the region if you’re visiting with a spouse, family or there on a buddy trip – both male and female.
Speaking of authors, I’m also friends with Ken Van Vechten, an experienced golf and travel writer whose second edition “Insiders Guide to Palm Springs” was published in 2010. Van Vechten has written scores of stories about the desert for regional and national publications, and he estimates that he’s played 70 courses and 225-plus rounds in the Coachella Valley during visits that stir old memories.
“As a kid growing up in So Cal in the ’60s and early ’70s, the desert was not yet the type of place it is now when you think of all the getaway stuff,” Van Vechten said. “The desert then was mostly Palm Springs, and activities largely embraced the pool and martinis. But a trip to the desert was special because we’d ride the tram, hike the Indian Canyons, camp at Joshua Tree.”
Van Vechten, who moved from Riverside to Lompoc a little more than three years ago, spent his teens and 20s in Oregon but returned to the desert when possible.
“Visits were regular, if not frequent, as I’d come down for spring break, and, at some point, my sister purchased a second home here, so enter more trips and holidays,” he said. “I finally returned to the Southland in the late ’80s, and from that point on I was down monthly, often three times a month. Now my parents live full time in La Quinta, so I’ve spent hundreds of nights in the desert. And the love affair with the region hasn’t been hurt by the fact that my wife is a desert rat too.”
I’ve teed it up with Ken in a number of places around the country but never in the Coachella Valley. We’ll likely remedy that before we lose our swing planes and energy levels, as I hear there are plenty of ways to stay active in the region if you can take the heat.
“The desert to me is all about the outdoors,” Van Vechten said. “That might sound like a huge ‘duh’ moment, but think about it. A round of golf gives you four-plus hours out in the sun. You play tennis. You hike in the highlands come summer. You hike wherever you want the rest of the year. I’ve finally gotten back into a sport I loved in college – cycling – and between the weather and the fact that nearly every road is striped for a bike lane, spin away.”
Putting a different spin on the stereotype of the desert being mainly for retirees is something that’s gradually changing.
“These are real communities, real cities,” Van Vechten said. “There are kids and colleges and schools everywhere. People work, live, raise families and play, so regardless of age or station in life, everyone’s pretty much here because it’s gorgeous and the weather rocks.”
