A giant bear with its snout pointed down and an eagle with wings in preflight position watch over Journey at Pechanga from one of the highest points above the course. The animals, sacred to the native Pechanga people and thought to be among the first beings on earth, take the form of giant boulders, and thousands of them dot the low mountainous terrain in south Temecula.
While paying attention to the course is recommended for good scoring chances, golfers who know where to look can also see several spots dedicated to Native American heritage. The Pechanga people hunted, gathered and established homesteads there, and artifacts from those days in the late 1800s remain on the course.
“We wanted people to know for sure where they are when they play here,” said Gary DuBois, director of Pechanga Cultural Resources. “It’s not a traditional course.”
At almost every hole, Pechanga Cultural Resources coordinator Paul Macarro can point out culturally important artifacts or anecdotes.
“A frequent question we get is about the trees,” he said. “Golfers ask, ‘Why is there an oak tree in the middle of the first fairway?’”
His answer is that Pechanga people consider oaks sacred and sentient beings, so cutting them down would be a serious tribal transgression. The ninth hole was originally slated to be a par-4, he added, but a knoll with oak trees couldn’t be touched so the hole ended up a par-5 before the course opened.
“We had to be true to our ancestors, our beliefs and to the environment,” he said. “The course was designed by only constructing on the non-tribally or habitat-sensitive areas.”
Construction crews rebuilding San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake used salt and pepper granite from the Pechanga site to restore the city’s Market Street, and Journey’s tee and hole markers are also made from the same shiny, speckled rock. Records also show that an adobe wall to the right of the cart path on the course’s fifth hole was the first general store in Temecula and a stagecoach stop along the Butterfield Stage Line in the 1870s.
“Some of the artifacts at Journey give a glimpse into the history of Temecula and its intersection with our tribe,” DuBois said. “When the Pechanga people were pushed out of their original settlement at that time they moved and set up homesteads close to the Magee store.”
A replica native village behind the 10th green is hard for golfers to miss, and Macarro said thekiicha(“home” in the Luiseño language) and the raised granary are the most asked about and photographed cultural sites on the course.
“It’s a teaching station,” DuBois said. “With the surrounding elderberry trees, the village shows what life here would have looked like before settler contact. We know there are no other courses out there that go to the lengths we do to manage and preserve heritage. We’ve been entrusted with it by our ancestors.”
