In an effort to keep the Indian Wells Golf Resort competitive — and to attract the LPGA Tour back to the Coachella Valley — the city council voted by a 3-2 margin Thursday to spend $13.5 million to redesign one of the resort’s two main courses.

The Indian Wells council agreed to spend $12 million for Troon, the company that manages the resort, to work with a golf landscaping company to complete the Player’s Course redesign, along with $1.5 million to build a new fire access road on the property.

The remodel was planned by John Fought, the same person who designed the course in 2007, and it involves relocating the 17th and 18th holes to the north side of the Whitewater Channel, rehabilitating the greens and tee boxes, replacing the course’s irrigation system and rerouting the overall course.

The 18th fairway and green at the Indian Wells Golf Resort, seen April 26, 2024.
City officials told the council the remodel is sorely needed to keep the course competitive among golf destinations in the Coachella Valley and beyond. While most of the council ultimately supported the project, some members were concerned about getting more community input, as well as the considerable increase in the final bid submitted to the city compared to prior cost estimates.

With the council’s approval, construction on the redesigned course will begin in March 2025, with an opening date in November 2025.

Why it matters

The Players Course at the Indian Wells Golf Resort was built 17 years ago. City Manager Christopher Freeland said its irrigation system and bunkers need to be replaced, noting the course’s ranking has dropped in recent years.

“We want to maintain our market share and to make sure that our course is competitive with our other (local) competitors of PGA West and Desert Willow, who have done recent renovations,” Freeland told the council Thursday.

Hotel officials also told the city they’ll be able to better market a new golf course, compared to just a rehabilitation, with Freeland noting estimates that the project will lead to more revenues for the resort.

Freeland also said the remodeled course could be a draw to the Ladies Professional Golf Association, which has a long history in the valley. The LPGA Tour held its Dinah Shore tournament, now known as the Chevron Championship, at the Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage from 1972 to 2022.

That tournament moved to the Houston area in 2023, but the Epson Tour, the developmental tour for the LPGA, recently held its championship at the Indian Wells Golf Resort Player’s Course. City officials are optimistic the Epson Tour event, combined with the remodel, will open the door to a full LPGA event.

“At the Epson Tour, the LPGA commissioner came to the events, learned about our redesign (and) had the opportunity to look at the design, and she is quite excited on what that can bring for the golf course,” Freeland said. “It’s our hope that perhaps that means we can bring the LPGA back to Indian Wells and the Coachella Valley.”

The city plans to pay for the $13.5 million project largely by using loan repayments it receives through the successor agency of the Indian Wells Redevelopment Agency, as well as by using proceeds from potential land sales. The loans, which the city made to its redevelopment agency to improve the golf resort prior to the dissolution of such agencies by the state in 2012, are now paid back annually through Riverside County property tax rebates.

Due to timing issues, the city’s general fund will provide some gap funding, covering an estimated $2.2 million to be paid back through a loan payment in 2026, according to a city staff report. The Player’s Course will also be closed from the start of March 2025 through the start of November 2025, which is expected to cause a net loss of about $1 million for the resort.

Two residents spoke in favor of the redesign project during Thursday’s meeting, calling it a good business decision for the city.

What the council said

After holding a lengthy special meeting last week to discuss the project, the council had a few more questions and concerns Thursday.

Councilmember Ty Peabody, who opposed the project, was worried about additional costs associated with the project, such as a new parking lot, and he said the city should try again to get more bids from top golf course designers.

Peabody also said more community input was necessary before moving forward with the project.

“There’s been no resident discussions since April 2 until last week (at the special meeting),” Peabody said. “There’s been no survey of the residents at all whether they want to go ahead with this project. … We’ve been asked to rush through this.”

In response, Councilmember Donna Griffith noted more than two dozen city meetings have been held in recent years related to the golf course renovations. The city’s golf resort advisory committee also unanimously recommended the project in March, according to a city staff report.

“(The residents) have been here since 2018,” Griffith said. “We’ve had extensive public engagement where we have had the ability for our public to be there at an open noticed meeting.”

“I think that our residents know this is coming,” she added. “And I just want to tell you, I ran into a lady at CVS the other day, and she was upset with me that it isn’t already done.”

The councilmembers who voted no also questioned the large jump in the project’s cost estimate in the final bid, compared to an initial projection of roughly $8.7 million. The final plans included an increase in the amount of earthwork from 25 acres to 42 acres.

Mayor Pro Tem Bruce Whitman, who also voted against funding the project, said the council didn’t receive the final plans with the higher estimate until days before a potential vote, and he described a “failure of communication” in the process.

“I do think that this is a problem of communication with our people who are supposed to be our experts and our consultants, and who didn’t give us the information in a timely way so that we could really have a deliberative process over the summer,” Whitman said. “Instead, we’ve had a deliberative process about this increase for essentially 10 days.”

“It’s not fair, but life isn’t always fair, so we have to make a decision,” he added. “But we don’t have to make it today.”

Councilmember Dana Reed said the approval process for the project “has been going on for years,” adding the city has done exactly what it’s supposed to do from the start.

“I am persuaded by Troon and the hotels and the golf committee that this is a good project, and I am persuaded by our finance director that the money is available without jeopardizing our general fund,” Reed said.

The council approved the funding for the project and the fire access road on a split vote, with Whitman and Peabody opposed. In a separate motion, the council also agreed to prepare an agreement to make Troon the project manager, with Peabody the sole member in opposition.

This story includes prior reporting by The Desert Sun’s Larry Bohannan. Tom Coulter covers the cities of Palm Desert, La Quinta, Rancho Mirage and Indian Wells. Reach him at thomas.coulter@desertsun.com.