Two Winters in Palm Springs: The Course Worth Repeating

Six of us make this trip most years, an annual January golf week that started in Scottsdale and heads to Tucson next. 2026 was the third January in a row the group came back to Palm Springs, though only my second trip there since I missed one of the three. Between my two trips, five different Palm Springs courses, and two of them played both times. Only one was ever called the favorite.

The golf report

Classic Club, the actual favorite

Great layout, tremendous shape, a handful of holes worth stopping for. The 12th is a gorgeous, deceptive par 3. The 15th has water down the left that's a lot easier to find than you'd think standing on the tee. The 18th saves its test for the second shot.

The course alone would be worth going back for, but it's not the whole reason it's the favorite. The staff were incredible and welcoming. There was a promo running in the clubhouse both times that made an already good day better. The breakfast burrito is worth ordering before you tee off, not after. The pro shop had apparel actually worth buying. And both trips ended with after-dinner bourbon at the restaurant bar, which counts for as much as anything that happened on the course.

What actually got played

Shadow Hills North and Classic Club are the two repeats. The difference is why. Classic Club got rebooked because it earned it. Shadow Hills North got rebooked because of when it fits, not because it's the best round on the list.

The rest of the rotation

Shadow Hills North is quick, and that's the actual case for it: it's a good fit right after a flight lands, when daylight is the thing you're managing, and neither trip left us worried about finishing before dark. Two warnings. Grab your drinks at the clubhouse before you tee off. Both times we played it, there was no beverage cart out and barely any water fountains on the course, and we were parched by the time we got back. And it's a neighborhood course with a real "this is how we do things here" streak, plenty of members, and marshals who were short with us both rounds despite us not doing anything to deserve it.

Rams Hill is absolutely worth the drive out, more so if you don't mind passing the Salton Sea on the way there, its own strange detour worth reading about on your own time. The course itself is incredible and the people running it were great. The greens are the story: wild, full of false fronts, reads that border on putt-putt if you don't know them yet. We three-putted our way to a lesson. Next time we play it, knowing what we know now about how those greens move, we'll shave five to ten strokes off without changing anything else about our game. We're going back.

Indian Wells, both the Celebrity and Players courses, has the popular resort feel, crowded, country-club energy, and it's worth it anyway. Both courses are a good time with real views, and both have the same odd landmark: what looks like a storm drain running right through the layout. Neither course lets that get in the way of a good round.

Escena has some of the widest fairways we've played anywhere, decent greens, and a course that reads like it's being actively improved into something better than it already is. It sits close enough to Palm Springs International that you'll hear planes on approach, which is a feature and not a bug if you're the type who likes that. With TSA PreCheck, you can genuinely fit a quick nine at Escena before a flight out, and you'll be glad you did.

The travel report

Half this trip is the golf. The other half is how six people got to the desert, slept, and drove for a week. Here is the miles side, in the order we booked it.

Getting there on AA miles

Flights went on American, booked in June for a January trip, during a sale. 17,500 AAdvantage miles per person, roundtrip.

We could have shaved a few miles off that with a different routing, and we chose not to. The constraint was arrival time, not price. We needed to be on the ground early enough to play that first day, and a cheaper itinerary landing later would have cost us a round. That trade is worth naming, because it is the one most points advice skips. The cheapest award is not the best award if it eats a tee time.

Palm Springs International (PSP) sits inside the valley itself, which is the practical advantage this trip has over a lot of golf destinations. No long drive from a distant hub tacked onto either end.

Where we stayed

A house, booked through VRBO, after scouring Airbnb, VRBO, and a pile of other sites. Six golfers is exactly the group size where a house beats hotel rooms, and the search took real time: first finding the right house, then finding the best price on that specific house once we knew which one we wanted.

The booking went through VRBO via the Capital One shopping portal, which earned a bonus on top and helped surface the best price. That is the part worth copying. Portal shopping is the least glamorous points move there is, and on a booking this size it is free money for one extra click.

The rental car

I am an Avis snob, and I want to be precise about why, because it is not loyalty in the way that word usually gets used.

Avis is who I use for corporate travel. My discount codes work for personal and business rentals both, and those codes are hard to beat on price. I booked with the code, applied some of my Avis points, and got a big class bump from President's Club status, which sounds considerably better than it actually is.

Now the honest part. Avis Rewards is the worst loyalty program I have ever used. The points are close to useless, and I applied some to this rental mostly to stop them sitting there. If Avis is reading this: I am genuinely loyal to you, and your loyalty program and your redemptions are absolute garbage. Both of those are true at once, and it is the discount codes keeping me, not the program.

So the recommendation is narrow. Chase the corporate discount code, not the points. If you have a code through work that applies to personal rentals, that is the lever. The rewards balance is not.

When a Texas storm extended the trip

A winter storm hit Texas while we were in Palm Springs, and we extended the trip considerably rather than fly into it.

This is why there are extra courses on the 2026 list. Escena and Indian Wells are on there because we suddenly had days we had not planned for and a valley full of tee times.

Both ends of the extension went smoothly, which is worth recording, because this is exactly the moment a trip usually falls apart. Avis extended the rental without an argument. The VRBO host was accommodating about the extra nights. A weather delay that hands you two more rounds in the desert is the good version of a weather delay.

Where we ate

A trip report isn't complete without the food, and two places earned a repeat the same way Classic Club did.

Sherman's handled breakfast both trips. There are two locations; we stuck with the one closer to most of the courses on this list, and it's worth building your morning around rather than grabbing something at the course instead.

Dinner both trips was LG's Steakhouse, and the honest review is one word: wow. Order the table-side Caesar salad before anything else. It's the best Caesar I've had anywhere, and it's worth the trip on its own before the steaks even show up, which are excellent in their own right. LG's also has two locations; the one linked above is the one we know.

Building your own trip around it

Book Classic Club first. It's the round we'd play every trip if we could. Fill out the rest of the week with Escena, Rams Hill, and the two Indian Wells courses for different looks each day, and treat Shadow Hills North as the fast, reliable option for a landing day rather than a must-play, just eat and drink before you get there.

Tee-time availability and current green fees shift by season and by course, so confirm both directly with each course before you build a firm schedule rather than assuming a prior year's booking window still holds. Driving distance between any two specific courses varies too. Rams Hill in particular is a real drive out from the rest of this list, worth it, but budget the time for it.

What's next

Build out the rest of a Palm Springs week on the golf side of the site. This annual trip started in Scottsdale before it ever got to Palm Springs, so that's the next recap in this series, followed eventually by a report from Tucson once that trip actually happens. Subscribe to the 19th Hole to get the next one when it posts, or grab a course-themed puzzle book for the flight in.