Westin Mission Hills Pete Dye Course

Review and Rating of Westin Mission Hills Pete Dye Course in Rancho Mirage California

The Westin Mission Hills Golf Resort and Spa is home to two very good 18 hole golf courses.  The Pete Dye 18 is a par 70 6706 yard resort course with all of the signature trade marks of Pete Dye – big raised greens, strategically placed bunkers, forced carries, and challenging putting surfaces.  The The Gary Player Signature Course is longer from all of the tee boxes, a stroke or two harder, and it's home to huge greens, lots of mounding and bunkers, rolling fairways, and some water features.  Here is a link to our review of The Westin Mission Hills Gary Player Course.  

Troon, one of the best golf management companies in the golf industry, manages the courses and common to both courses are:

• excellent conditions from the tee boxes to the cup
• first class facilities including a well stocked pro shop
• excellent service
• The Westin's reputation for service, good amenities, and a good stay and play package

The Westin Mission Hills Pete Dye course is a fun layout that plays through some homes and golf villas, past lots of palm trees swaying in the breeze, and with the mountains as a backdrop.  The course is characterized by wide sweeping fairways, raised big greens surrounded by swales, bunkers, and mounds, and holes where you can see the pin and what you're up against.  Water on 7 holes and 70 bunkers and mounds and rolling fairways can cause some problems, but the course is very fair to all skill levels.

Some of the holes that we really enjoyed included:

• #5 is a fun 541 yard par 5 with a risk reward shot to try and carry more of the pond off the tee and miss two big fairway bunkers and the roller coaster green is raised and guarded by two bunkers and mounds
• #14 is a fun 417 yard par 4 with tough approach to the green – a pond on the left juts into the fairway as it turns left past another pond on the right front of the green with two left side bunkers
• #17 also requires a precise approach shot to a 35 yard deep green surrounded by 4 pot bunkers on the right, 2 in the back, and 2 on the left side

The bunkers are typical Pete Dye – huge to small deep pot bunkers strategically placed along the fairways and guarding all of the greens.  The faces can be challenging and to score well you need to do whatever it takes to avoid them.  The sand was ok. 

Most of the fairways are huge off the tee box and a little tighter on the approach shots.  They were in excellent condition when we played.  Trees, mounds, desert, and some home line the fairways.  The palm trees, water, mountains, and fauna make the course visually very scenic. 

The greens range from 29 to 39 yards deep and they are a variety of sizes.  Most are raised with lots of contour and they are surrounded by mounds, swales, and bunkers.  When we played they were in excellent condition, ran at around a 9 or so, and required some study to read the breaks.