STONE EAGLE GOLF CLUB, PALM DESERT CALIFORNIA

The Stone Eagle Golf Club is settled on a mountaintop overlooking Palm Desert and the vast Coachella Valley, situated in Eastern California. The elevations that characterize the site make the views from the high spots breathtaking due to the starling contrast among the dark green of the golf course, the dark brown of mountains’ background and the light beige of sand bunkers.

Deserts are not the places where golf intended to be played until few decades ago when it became very popular and governments started to write laws in order to reduce the use of water for irrigation.
Golf architects when they have to face with this kind of projects have a maximum acreage to use for grass in the design; they have to choose to have wider fairways with bug carries of waste areas or tight one.

Following his philosophy of strategic play Doak decided to design wide fairways, at Stone Eagle there are many forced carries of waste areas, not just from the tee, but also for the approach, this could make for high handicaps a round at Stone Eagle too much challenging.Another thing that one notices having a look to the plan of each hole is that few greens(4) are aligned from front left to back right, a further sign that Doak intended to design this course to challenge more the game of better players