36 Holes a Day in Palm Springs at Easter (=Masters) Weekend?

[avrag]

Is it possible (daylight, pace of play)? Which two courses?

A question for those who live in Coachella Valley or visit it on a regular basis.
I will be staying there with my wife (who does not play golf) from April 4th to April 9th, which is Wednesday to Monday over the Easter weekend (which also happens to be Masters weekend).
Besides playing golf, I also want to go hiking and maybe architecture sight-seeing with my wife, so I need to plan the golf carefully. I am still undecided, if I will be better off playing one round per day (either in the morning or in the afternoon), or if I should go for 36 holes a day twice and leave the other two days completely golf-free.
Which begs the question, if one can seriously expect to even get two rounds per day in at those dates, when the courses will certainly be busy with people who do not play often.
On which courses will there be the best chance that pace of play will be fast enough to play 36 a day? How long will there be daylight? I figure that there will be considerably more light on the courses which are closer to I-10 and further from the mountains, and those will also be frequented less because of the wind. True?
We will be staying in Desert Hot Springs for two nights and in the Southern part of Palm Springs for the other two, so the nearest courses will be Desert Dunes, Escena, Desert Princess, Cimarron, Tahquitz Creek, Indian Canyons (in fact, I could walk there from where we are staying for the last 3 nights).
I am thinking maybe both Indian Canyons Courses on one day or a combination of Escena and Desert Dunes, Cimarron or Desert Princess?
Another option is still to let my wife have her own program for one day and maybe go to Indian Wells to play both courses there or to La Quinta for the Nicklaus and Norman courses. But then again, I wonder if I would encounter 6 hour rounds there on this weekend, so that 36 holes are out of the question. Same goes for the option of playing both Desert Willow courses.
I would appreciate any advice, thank you.

[TMBob]

[quote name='avrag' timestamp='1327852816' post='4172657']
A question for those who live in Coachella Valley or visit it on a regular basis.
I will be staying there with my wife (who does not play golf) from April 4th to April 9th, which is Wednesday to Monday over the Easter weekend (which also happens to be Masters weekend).
Besides playing golf, I also want to go hiking and maybe architecture sight-seeing with my wife, so I need to plan the golf carefully. I am still undecided, if I will be better off playing one round per day (either in the morning or in the afternoon), or if I should go for 36 holes a day twice and leave the other two days completely golf-free.
Which begs the question, if one can seriously expect to even get two rounds per day in at those dates, when the courses will certainly be busy with people who do not play often.
On which courses will there be the best chance that pace of play will be fast enough to play 36 a day? How long will there be daylight? I figure that there will be considerably more light on the courses which are closer to I-10 and further from the mountains, and those will also be frequented less because of the wind. True?
We will be staying in Desert Hot Springs for two nights and in the Southern part of Palm Springs for the other two, so the nearest courses will be Desert Dunes, Escena, Desert Princess, Cimarron, Tahquitz Creek, Indian Canyons (in fact, I could walk there from where we are staying for the last 3 nights).
I am thinking maybe both Indian Canyons Courses on one day or a combination of Escena and Desert Dunes, Cimarron or Desert Princess?
Another option is still to let my wife have her own program for one day and maybe go to Indian Wells to play both courses there or to La Quinta for the Nicklaus and Norman courses. But then again, I wonder if I would encounter 6 hour rounds there on this weekend, so that 36 holes are out of the question. Same goes for the option of playing both Desert Willow courses.
I would appreciate any advice, thank you.
[/quote]


Just played Weston Gary Player Course this week...$79 Standby booking and looking into a replay one da and it was $55. I could played the Dye course also for my replay. I finished my 18 at 12:45 and would not have been about to get in a full second 18 as the course filled up. We started at 8:25 am.

By the time that u are down there, there should be plenty of light. Indian Canyon would work well, so would the two Westin course. In Palm Desert, Desert Willow and the Marriott both have two courses.

[URStillAway]

I just got back on jan 29th from Palm Springs area. Even then we found it no problem in terms of daylight to get 36 holes in and we teed off between 745 and 845am.

So daylight should not be a problem in April. Cannot comment on the pace of play for that weekend though.

[bassman_444]

April will be fine for 2 a day. Dec-Feb it's tight if you don't tee off before 1230 for your second round, which puts you at a 700-730am start at a slower paced course.

[avrag]

Just wanted to bump this in case anybody can tell me first hand about the daylight.
I see that sunset is shortly after 7 pm at the moment. But I would be happy if somebody could tell me when it actually gets too dark to play. 15 minute later, or more like half an hour?
I ask this because I live in a place, where there is still daylight long after the official sunset, but I have a feeling, that this is not the case in Coachella Valley, because it is more to the south and because of the high mountains in the West.

[Dave52]

I can speak from experience, and I hope I'm remembering correctly ...

I played the Mountain course at La Quinta around this time of year (I played mid March) about a year ago.

I was finishing up the Mountain course at the end of the day. And the sun did go down pretty quickly. I don't know if it was Mountain course specific, but, I vaugely recall it getting dark over the course of playing the last hole.

I'm guessing it was more extreme because I was playing the Mountain course, which naturally is up against the mountains. But if memory serves, the sun sets directly behind them, so you lose some time on the sunset because of that factor.

[TMBob]

Just got an Indian Wells email on some specials....walking after 4 pm was like $25 and replays were $50

PM for the email and I will forward it to you.

BG

[avrag]

[quote name='TMBob' timestamp='1333117350' post='4612535']
Just got an Indian Wells email on some specials....walking after 4 pm was like $25 and replays were $50

PM for the email and I will forward it to you.

BG
[/quote]

Thank you. I got that email as well. Sounds interesting, but I will try to get two full rounds in on April 8th. I have booked Desert Willow Firecliff already for 8.30 and I will keep looking for a 2.30ish time on another course in the next days.
It's Easter and Masters' Sunday, so I think the chances are good. Right now, I am leaning towards Indian Wells Players. 2.30 means twilight rate for $ 115, which seems ok given the revues this course gets.

[TMBob]

[quote name='avrag' timestamp='1333138388' post='4614923']
[quote name='TMBob' timestamp='1333117350' post='4612535']
Just got an Indian Wells email on some specials....walking after 4 pm was like $25 and replays were $50

PM for the email and I will forward it to you.

BG
[/quote]

Thank you. I got that email as well. Sounds interesting, but I will try to get two full rounds in on April 8th. I have booked Desert Willow Firecliff already for 8.30 and I will keep looking for a 2.30ish time on another course in the next days.
It's Easter and Masters' Sunday, so I think the chances are good. Right now, I am leaning towards Indian Wells Players. 2.30 means twilight rate for $ 115, which seems ok given the revues this course gets.
[/quote]

The Classic Club is super close to Desert Willow.....check them out. Also, Golf Now has hot tee times if you sign up for them. Pretty much what is listed for April 1st will be what will be listed for April 8th. (bookings are 7 days out on hot tee times)

I see Shadow Ridge at 1:39 pm for $80 and again, it is super close to Desert Willow..just a thought. Also check Standby Golf for discounts in the area.

IW Players is nice and on par with those other two.

[avrag]

[quote name='TMBob' timestamp='1333146553' post='4615727']
[quote name='avrag' timestamp='1333138388' post='4614923']
[quote name='TMBob' timestamp='1333117350' post='4612535']
Just got an Indian Wells email on some specials....walking after 4 pm was like $25 and replays were $50

PM for the email and I will forward it to you.

BG
[/quote]

Thank you. I got that email as well. Sounds interesting, but I will try to get two full rounds in on April 8th. I have booked Desert Willow Firecliff already for 8.30 and I will keep looking for a 2.30ish time on another course in the next days.
It's Easter and Masters' Sunday, so I think the chances are good. Right now, I am leaning towards Indian Wells Players. 2.30 means twilight rate for $ 115, which seems ok given the revues this course gets.
[/quote]

The Classic Club is super close to Desert Willow.....check them out. Also, Golf Now has hot tee times if you sign up for them. Pretty much what is listed for April 1st will be what will be listed for April 8th. (bookings are 7 days out on hot tee times)

I see Shadow Ridge at 1:39 pm for $80 and again, it is super close to Desert Willow..just a thought. Also check Standby Golf for discounts in the area.

IW Players is nice and on par with those other two.
[/quote]

To be honest, I first wanted to play Classic Club in the morning and some other course in the afternoon. But I am staying in Palm Springs, so already a 20+ minute drive, and the only two tee times for Classic Club would have been 7.20 and 8.10, and I simply wanted to have those extra 20 min of sleep.
After looking at the fly-overs and pictures, I also liked Firecliff better. I like a good amount of water hazards on a course, but the Palmer designs sometimes seem to go over the top with that. I don't want to book Classic for an afternoon round in advance because of the wind.
I would love to play Shadow Ridge, the pictures and fly-overs look great, but this is another one of those courses which discriminate against singles. The only online offers for one player (even on GolfNow) are always same day or next day. Maybe I'll just wait until Staurday afternoon. If Tiger, Phil and Rory are in contention at the Masters, I might have a hole lot of free tee times to choose from.