some good news
California residents band together to purchase and reopen closed golf course that hosted the Skins Game
Jeff Gross
From 2003 through 2006, the Coral Mountain Golf Club, also known as Trilogy at La Quinta, hosted the Skins Game, which featured illustrious tour pros from Tiger Woods to Phil Mickelson to Annika Sorenstam. Well, the times have changed, and bankruptcy and poor management forced the course to close in September 2022. Until now, that is.
Local California residents have come together to purchase the 229-acre course and adjoining restaurant. It required a more than $6 million initial purchase from the Trilogy at La Quinta Maintenance Association with plenty of additonal costs for course upgrades and repair, but the course is now set to reopen at the end of this year. 88 percent of the 1,238 homeowners who voted supported the move, despite how much work is on the way.
Fans retrieve Fred Funk's ball thrown in a water hazard by Annika Sorenstam on the seventh green during the first round of the Merrill Lynch Skins Game at Trilogy Golf Club at La Quinta in La Quinta, California November 26, 2005.
Steve Grayson
“It’s just in extremely rough shape, barely looks like a golf course,” said Mark Reider, president of the TLQMA board of directors. “We’re looking forward to getting back into the kind of condition that it was in when the Skins game was hosted here.
“It’s still a very playable, enjoyable course, and [we’re] looking forward to having both people in our community being able to play here, as well as people from the surrounding areas or folks that are coming in from out of town on a golf trip.”
The course’s name will revert to Trilogy Golf Club at La Quinta, which is what it was called during its Skins Game heyday. Fred Couples won this event twice, with winning totals of $605,000 and $640,000, so he’s probably as glad as anyone that this course will be back and playable once again.