Rams Hill
Southern California has long been one of the best destinations for a golf vacation. With nearly perfect weather year-round and the glorious waves of the Pacific Ocean nearby, a visit here offers a plethora of great golf courses for you to enjoy.
The region offers a diverse variety from cliffside views of the Pacific, desert floors carved out by ancient rivers, and mountainous backdrops all providing you with an astonishing concentration of world-class courses.
If you’re thinking about planning a Southern California golf trip and doing it right, here are the ten destinations that would certainly fit on a traveling golfer’s itinerary.
The desert gems
Let’s begin with the course that most golfers don’t know well enough. Rams Hill, nestled in the high desert of Borrego Springs, is a Tom Fazio masterpiece that deserves far more attention than it gets. At 2,500 feet of elevation, the air is thinner, the ball flies farther, and the silence is absolute. Fazio sculpted the terrain here to create a course of remarkable variety with wide panoramic vistas on the plateau holes, intimate canyon corridors, and a visual drama that builds relentlessly throughout your round. What makes Rams Hill special is the secluded nature of the property. You’ll find solitude, wildlife, and golf of exceptional quality on turf that’s immaculately maintained year-round. Rams Hill is quickly gaining more national recognition, and it’s one of the best value destinations in the United States to enjoy.
Further north of Rams Hill but still quite a ways inland from the coast, the Coachella Valley delivers two destinations that are always high on the list for any serious traveling golfer. PGA West in La Quinta is one of the rare complexes in this region that is worthy of a lengthy trip in and of itself. With five publicly accessible courses on property including the renowned Stadium Course designed by Pete Dye, this is one of the larger golf destinations on the West Coast that golfers simply love. Playing the Stadium Course is a rite of passage, and surviving Dye’s island green at the par-3 17th is thought to be every bit as demanding as his other famous island green, the 17th at THE PLAYERS Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass. We suggest that you stay at the nearby LaQuinta Resort, play as many of the courses as you can, and you’ll understand why the desert has drawn the game’s best players for generations.
PGA West
Just down the road, Indian Wells Golf Resort offers a more accessible and more playable experience with two championship courses, the Celebrity and Players Courses, that reward strategy over brute length. The backdrop of the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains gives every round a dramatic visual frame. Indian Wells excels at the things that matter most to resort golfers: excellent conditioning and playability. The onsite accommodations have been thoroughly refreshed in recent years, and the dining has risen to match. This is desert golf at its most welcoming.
Indian Wells Golf Resort
San Diego’s coastal corridor
No golf trip to Southern California is complete without spending time in San Diego County, which offers one of the most concentrated runs of quality courses on the West Coast. The star of the show here is Torrey Pines. Both the North and South courses occupy a bluff above Black’s Beach with views of the Pacific that stop play as golfers pause to simply take in the incredible vistas that surround them. The South Course, redesigned by Rees Jones for the 2008 U.S. Open which famously won by Tiger Woods in a playoff over Rocco Mediate, plays as hard as any municipal course in America. The North is more forgiving yet equally beautiful. What makes Torrey Pines irreplaceable is its accessibility. This is public golf of major championship quality, and walking these fairways in the morning marine layer is one of those golf experiences that stays with you for years. For vacationing golfers, it’s a very difficult tee time to secure so your best bet can be booking a stay-and-play at the Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines or The Lodge at Torrey Pines in order to secure a tee time.
Torrey Pines
A short drive inland, the Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad is one of Southern California’s quintessential golf resorts. The two courses here, Champions and Legends, are set among rolling hills, mature eucalyptus trees, and a resort infrastructure that’s been serving golfers since 1965 and is about to host the 2026 NCAA Championships in May of this year. What we appreciate most about La Costa is the completeness of the experience with the spa, multiple pools, an excellent food and beverage program, and fantastic accommodations. It’s a place where non-golfers on a trip will be as happy as the golfer in the group, which matters enormously on family and couples trips.
Omni La Costa Resort & Spa
For the golfer seeking absolute luxury in San Diego, there are two properties that operate at the highest level of the game. The Grand Del Mar, home to the Tom Fazio-designed Grand Golf Club, is a private club-quality experience available to resort guests, and those guests are treated accordingly. The course winds through a canyon with the San Dieguito River as its constant companion, and Fazio’s routing uses elevation change and water in ways that feel both dramatic and fair. In addition to an exceptional golf experience, the resort here is the definition of luxury in Southern California, and it makes for a great golf getaway especially with your other half.
The Grand Del Mar
Then there’s Park Hyatt Aviara, where Arnold Palmer’s design along the wetlands of the Batiquitos Lagoon produces views so cinematic that first time visitors sometimes forget to keep score. Aviara is meticulous, beautifully maintained, and sits adjacent to one of the finest resort properties in Southern California.
Park Hyatt Aviara
And for those looking for a great value in this arena, don’t overlook Pala Mesa Resort in Fallbrook. It’s humbler in profile than its coastal neighbors, but its championship course is built on gently rolling terrain with ancient oaks framing nearly every fairway delivers a solid golf experience at a price point that makes multi-round trips practical. They’ve recently come under new ownership, and the investment in the property certainly shows.
Pala Mesa Resort
Orange County & the coast
Moving north along the coast, Orange County contributes three properties that together represent some of the most visually spectacular golf in the world. Pelican Hill Golf Club on the Pelican Hill Resort property in Newport Coast is, quite simply, one of the most beautiful golf settings on the Pacific coast. Tom Fazio’s two courses, Ocean North and Ocean South, wrap around hillsides above Crystal Cove and on clear days the Channel Islands are visible from the fairways. The Ocean Course’s famous par-3 sixth, playing downhill to a green perched above the Pacific, is sure to leave a lasting impression after your visit here.
Pelican Hill Golf Club
Monarch Beach Golf Links in Dana Point is a Ben Brown design that plays along the bluffs above Salt Creek Beach with a routing that manages to put ocean views in play on nearly every hole. Brown and his team did an exceptional job of routing this design around the ultra-high end luxury homes as well as the gorgeous adjacent Waldorf Astoria Monarch Beach Resort & Club. This resort is flawless, and it’s everything you could want to make your home base in the Dana Point area.
Monarch Beach Golf Links
Recommendation
What the best Southern California resorts understand is that a great golf trip is never just about the course. It’s about the entire day, and these destinations provide a fully inclusive experience that provides exceptional value in this area. Whether you’re chasing a U.S. Open venue, a sunset walk on a bluff above the Pacific, or the absolute solitude of a desert morning at elevation, these fairways are waiting so start planning today!