Had a buddy that never played Desert golf, so we planned a overnight trip a few months back. This was course 1 of 2. Booking tee times in the Palm Spring area because of the overseeding schedule is l... Continue »

Had a buddy that never played Desert golf, so we planned a overnight trip a few months back. This was course 1 of 2. Booking tee times in the Palm Spring area because of the overseeding schedule is like playing jenga this time of the year, especially if you want to avoid the dreaded cart path only restrictions after the clubs reopen. A blessing in disguised as it opened our menu of playable courses in the area. Keep in mind, Desert Willows does not have cart path restrictions after overseeding. Our 1st course was Desert Willows - Mountain View, which because of Greenskeeper.org knew that they were not overseeding until after we played on Friday, 11/3 at 12:55 pm. Always great to patron a well run facility by a long time GK supporter. The patio was closed for a private event at 2 pm. Announcements were made regarding that and the need to order goodies before last call at 2 pm. All the staff interacted with was excellent including the proshop guys, the cart coordinator Billy, and Larry, the starter who is always a friendly ambassador. Keep in mind the course was going to close a couple days after we played for overseeding so conditions were understandable brown. We were made aware of that during our welcome e-mail from Ryan Szydlowski, the assistant pro. Ryan was out and about roaming the grounds and working hard as usual! I wanted to say hello and thank him for supporting our community, because he seemed really busy, so I respectfully let the man do his thing. If you are reading, thank you Ryan! Greens were running medium speed at 10. The fairways had great coverage and had plenty of afternoon roll. The traps and tee boxes were well maintained. As usually, conditions were superb as we come to expect from Desert Willows. POP was 4 hours 5 minutes. Post round, cart guys were great. We look forward to a return soon. I had another friend send his parents to play Desert Golf for the first time last week, and I had no hesitation recommending Desert Willows. They played FireCliff and was completely blown away. Good luck to GKer's playing the FireCliff course next month. The place should be looking spectacular!