GOLF’s latest Prime 100 Programs within the U.S. rating contains 11 newcomers, which we’ll introduce you to right here. Meet Ladera in Thermal, Calif.
CHANNING BENJAMIN
GOLF lately launched its newest rating of the Prime 100 Programs within the U.S. (2024-25), a listing that features 11 newcomers. A few of them you would possibly know. Others you may not. Right here, in our newcomer spotlights, we’ll introduce you to those rookie Prime 100 gems.
Newcomer highlight: Ladera / Rank: 87th
Location: Thermal, Calif.
Sort: Non-public
12 months opened: 2023
Architect: Gil Hanse, Jim Wagner
What you must find out about Ladera
Tucked away within the decrease Coachella Valley, this personal membership nestles up towards the Santa Rosa Mountains and supplies one of many sport’s most peaceable settings. Provided that Jim Wagner and Gil Hanse manipulated each inch of this desert website, they have been free to configure the fairways as greatest they noticed match. A number of tee photographs now require interesting diagonal carries over the likes of barrancas, low-lying vegetation and well-placed bunkers on the within of doglegs. Standout holes embrace the 210-yard par-3 twelfth that includes a Biarritz kind swale on the rear of the inexperienced, and the drivable par-4 fifteenth that performs to an elevated, angled inexperienced. The most effective of the bunch may be the 18th, with its huge bunker on the left working in excellent unison with a sister bunker entrance proper. That is strategic golf at a excessive stage.
What our raters say
“Ladera joins the Prime 100 by being essentially the most angular design that Gil Hanse has produced. Regardless that the fairways are beneficiant, there’s a particular most well-liked place to strategy the greens. Artistic shotmaking is a necessity resulting from Hanse and Wagner’s delicate and considerate design work on and across the greens. The tenth and fifteenth holes are distinctive and unique holes the place birdies and double bogeys will are available in equal numbers.”
“Not possible to play Ladera and never consider the inspiration Riviera will need to have supplied the Hanse/Wagner design crew. My private favourite gap is the blind strategy shot into the diagonal bisecting ridge within the inexperienced on the lengthy par-4 4th gap.”
“A tremendous feat of engineering, taking this flat lemon tree grove, digging the large barrancas by way of the property and shaping all of that fill into very vital elevation adjustments and tumbling fairways, after which routing 18 great golf holes onto the panorama. They usually did all of it inside a 12 months! Loopy spectacular. That is one of the best golf course within the Palm Springs space by far, high 10 within the state for positive and arguably one of the best desert course on the planet. Bravo to Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner for making a terrific day of golf for anybody fortunate sufficient to play there.”
