Played the Orange Tees (6538/71.7/129) with Wangster and a nice couple from Indianapolis in 4H, 15M, teeing off @ 12:50 and basically finishing 18 in the dark. Thanks to Andy for driving out for a fun... Continue »

Played the Orange Tees (6538/71.7/129) with Wangster and a nice couple from Indianapolis in 4H, 15M, teeing off @ 12:50 and basically finishing 18 in the dark. Thanks to Andy for driving out for a fun round! The course was absolutely packed because they had an afternoon tournament on the Celebrity course. We enjoyed sunny weather that was nice until the sun went down behind the mountains, then the temp goes down about 10 degrees almost immediately and a breeze kicked up. We had an AD Indian Wells voucher from Under Par and barely managed to get in 36 because of the short hours and the busy conditions. Beautiful layout (37-35) that I found more challenging than the Celebrity 1st time through even though the USGA ratings were lower on the comparable tees I played. SEVEN sets of well spaced tees, we played the 3rd set from the back, which was plenty. It was sobering to look @ some of the Cabernet tees where the pro's play when they have PGA events here. Granted, the front has an extra par 5, but @ 3917 yards from the tips, that is a LONG 9 holes of golf! With the course several weeks out of overseeding and not CPO, I expected lush conditions, and was not disappointed. The tees were lush, nicely maintained. Both the fairways and the rough were fairly lush, with occasional places where the overseeding had not taken hold as well. Nice to play out of, I almost always had good lies in both. The traps were excellent, well maintained with nice, fine sand. The greens were firm and putted medium fast... but they were not as fast as they looked. Our entire group was giving them too much respect speed wise. Andy had a challenging putting round that could have been a remarkable one "but for" at least a 1/2 dozen putts about 1" short right in the middle of the hole, several literally hanging on the lip. They putted true, I was beginning to get both the line and the speed down by the back 9. For me, it was quite an adjustment after playing on fast greens on Saturday, then very slow greens on Sunday & medium speed greens this morning. In playing the Celebrity course this morning, I had an advantage because I had played it before. However, I thought the Players was less forgiving, with more fairways that were either narrower or required turning the ball to get in prime positions than the Celebrity course. Both have large, challenging green complexes. The Players is probably the flatter of the 2 layouts, but both will produce many unlevel lies. Both would be challenging to walk since there are numerous tees hundreds of yards from the last green. There is nothing even remotely negative that could be said about the conditions and customer service we experienced here today. You would be hard pressed to find a better golf course experience anywhere.