Golf has been in the Coachella Valley for 100 years, starting with a nine-hole course
The Desert Inn golf course, also known as the Mashie Course, was the first golf course in the Coachella Valley, which now boast more than 120 courses
The image of O’Donnell Golf Club – at least for those who even know that the oldest golf course in the Coachella Valley still exists – is a mysterious course that can’t really be seen from the neighboring streets. It’s a private course with an older membership that doesn’t play much golf.
It’s an image that Alexandra Phillips understands and would like to change.
“We are really trying to be better neighbors rather than the mysterious never-there neighbors,” said Phillips, who took over as general manager at O’Donnell just last fall. “That’s a really big thing we want to be a part of and be a bigger part of Palm Springs this year and coming years.”
The truth is that O’Donnell, a nine-hole par-35 course measuring just over 5,200 yards as an 18-hole layout on Belardo Road at the base of the Santa Jacinto Mountains, is the only desert course with National Historic Preservation status for both its buildings and its landscape architecture.
It is also true O’Donnell faces the same problems as other private desert courses, like water issues, keeping the membership happy and trying to stay relevant in a highly competitive environment for golf courses.
Toward that end, the course membership and its board have been involved in changes to the facility that don’t impact the footprint of the 34-acre facility but do modernize the course that was first opened in 1927 by wealthy oilman Thomas O’Donnell.
Much of that work starts with the very turf itself, mostly still common Bermuda grass probably as old as the course itself. With help from Dr. James Baird, turfgrass specialist from the UC Riverside turfgrass science program, and long-time desert superintendent Roger Compton as a consultant, O’Donnell has taken on several turfgrass initiatives.
“Part and parcel to (Baird) doing that, a year and a half ago we re-did our greens with MiniVerde, so we are in year two of that now,” said John Essell, co-chairman of the greens committee at O’Donnell.
A look at the O’Donnell Golf Club in Palm Springs from above
Take a brief flyover tour of the O’Donnell Golf Club in Palm Springs, the oldest active golf course in the Coachella Valley
MiniVerde, a hybrid Bermuda grass, is growing in popularity at Coachella Valley golf courses as a grass for greens, promising smoother and faster surfaces as well as eliminating the need for overseeding in winter months.
The water savings O’Donnell is seeing from MiniVerde are augmented by the course allowing 11 of its 34 acres to go dormant this winter,
Those initiatives are important because O’Donnell is the only course in the desert that uses domestic water for irrigation. The course has never had a well to the underground aquifer, taking water in its early years from the Whitewater River via a canal built by Thomas O’Donnell himself. Desert Water Agency pipes for recycled water haven’t come close to O’Donnell’s location in downtown Palm Springs, just one block from Palm Canyon Drive.
Another change at the course has been renovating bunkers, including installing new bunker liners and switching to a sand mix of 50% Augusta White and 50% Desert Tan.
“Something I’ve been asking for for a couple of years before we finally appropriated the funds was to put in sod farm,” Essell said. “So we’ve got MiniVerde, it’s about a 1,500-square-foot MiniVerde patch, so if we ever need to patch any of the greens we can use that.”
That sod farm between the second fairway and ninth tee toward the north end of the property is next to another new addition to the course, one of two test plots UC Riverside has installed to see how different strains of drought-tolerant grasses handle the stresses of the Coachella Valley. One of the grasses, known as Coachella, is a grass developed by Dr. Baird at UC Riverside.
A second test plot is at the tee of the 504-yard par-5 eighth hole, which is mostly in shade because of neighboring tall eucalyptus trees.
Another change is contracting out the food and beverage service at the course to executive chef Gabriel Woo, best known in the desert for his Michelin-awarded Bar Cecil in Palm Springs.
“The reviews and the comments we are getting from the members is this is the best food we’ve had since we have been members,” Essell said.
The course has 300 members, 235 golf members and 65 social members.
It’s dealing with a membership at a private club that brought Phillips to O’Donnell. A former professional player and long-drive competitor, Phillips had been working at a public course in San Diego when she was hired at O’Donnell. Phillips grew up at a private club and also saw how private clubs treat members while she was playing professional tournaments.
“It’s really pretty awesome to see, not only that kind of historic background but then how the members want to be part of the neighborhood going forward,’ Phillips said.
Phillips said the course is planning various events in the coming months.
“We are bringing back our Easter sunrise service, which we did for 100 years. We are going to do it again this year. We are working with the local church that used to put it on in 2017, and they are going to do it again over on our fourth hole,” Phillips said. “We are doing a couple of first responders events, veterans events. We are working with the Bighorn sheep institute.”
Phillips and Essell said that rounds played in 2024 were up at O’Donnell.
“So you’ve got some energy going on that people want to come and play the golf course because of the condition of the golf course, and also they want to come and dine,” Essell said. “That’s a good combination.”
