Played a Friday twilight round at the Ike and happy to report the course is in fine golf shape, although maybe not as good as the best time you ever played there before. It's good, even very good in s... Continue »

Played a Friday twilight round at the Ike and happy to report the course is in fine golf shape, although maybe not as good as the best time you ever played there before. It's good, even very good in spots, but not quite great. But this is being pretty picky in relation to perhaps some of the fine carpet fairways and manicured surroundings of current Palm Springs courses.

First off though, the Ike has a great layout that will truly test you - good and mediocre players alike. Good shots here that find their mark really feel like wins. No shortage of elevations here and plenty of bunkers, OB and water features to eat up your low score. Also most definitely not a walking course, if only for the transition from the front nine to the back.

Nice greens right now with good coverage and medium-fast speeds. Very consistent throughout. Nice fairways, again, even very good in spots, but not super lush to be fair. I know I've played here before when the fairways were super lush and it was even more fun. But it's still entirely good to play here. Thin around the greens for chipping though. Bunkers were unkept with no rakes and definitely not a lot of people self-raking with their boots. It is what it is. Tee boxes (we played from the blues) were okay - very wide tee box markers for maximum angles and flat spot location.

I don't recall any cart service on the course, but there's also currently no courtesy cart to the driving range (which, in truth, could use some sprucing up for a place of this caliber), so be prepared for that walk across the property. The carts are fine and well organized, but they'll also charge you $30 now if you want to ride alone, which is odd because a week ago they required you to ride solo. Sign of the times ...

Always a good time and a fun challenge. Never pass up a chance to play here.