PGA West at La Quinta Resort and Club

For casual players looking to enjoy their time on the green, there’s no better option in the Coachella Valley than the PGA West at La Quinta Resort and Club. The green runs straight into the base of the San Jacinto mountains, their brown earth a stark contrast to the manicured greens of the golf course.

It takes quite a golf course for a bunch of professionals to refuse to use it as a tournament green. And yet, despite its inclusion as one of the top 100 courses in America, that’s exactly what happened in 1987 to the PGA West Course at La Quinta Resort. The Pete Dye–designed course is notoriously difficult, despite playing with a par 72.