Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/125316
dufferiffic par threes to tracks like the Classic Club and PGA West Stadium courses, both of which rank in Golfweek's Top 10 Courses You Can Play in California. And while golf in the desert used to be decidedly expensive, green fees have edged back into the moderate range. In summer, when daytime temperatures rarely peak below 40 C, playing there is downright cheap. A few days of club-wielding also have me reconsidering the merits of the Inland Empire I'd dismissed so casually on the way through. There may not be a lot to pique a traveller's interest in the whistle-stop town of Beaumont, 25 minutes west of Palm Springs, but there are three outstanding golf courses, all of them naturalistic beauties that meander through and around the hills and coulees. With their 7,000-yard lengths and rolling greens, Oak Valley and the two 18s at Tukwet Canyon are major-league tracks by any measure. In fact, one of the Tukwet Canyon courses is a regular venue for the PGA's Q-School, an annual late-fall ritual in which hundreds of nervous contenders attempt to qualify for the 25 spots on the next year's tour. 48 G O I N G P L A C E S p46-53_Cali Golf.indd 48 >> summer 2013 (clockwise, from top) The minimalist Rustic Canyon course near L.A.; Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, setting of the 1959 Marilyn Monroe movie Some Like It Hot; a hickory golfer in costume at Rancho Bernardo Inn Golf Resort and Spa. rustic Canyon Golf Course, ("The Del") Joerg reimann/istock, (golfer) Jim sutherland 13-04-12 1:14 PM