I just had to see Frank’s house before leaving
Palm Springs.
The map said it was close to O’Donnell’s nine-holer, the first course ever built
in the desert, back in 1925. Armed with a self-guided star map and a
handful of Rat Pack CDs, I was plotting the perfect conclusion to my retro golf
weekend 100 miles southeast of L.A. “There it is,” said my wife, pulling over on
busy Alejo Street. “Sinatra’s first home in Palm Springs.”
You can keep your Ray Romanos and the foggy
Monterey coast.
Give me Hoagy, Dino, Gleason and Indian Wells in the spring. Give me skinny ties
and Tiparillos, and Arnie lapping the field at the 1960 Palm Springs
Classic—back before Bob Hope lent his name to the event. Give me cactus-green
polyester, winter tans and balls that couldn’t out-roll O’Hare’s runways. Give
me a pack of desert rats who liked their golf the same as the flowering jasmine
that carpets the Coachella Valley every spring: dry and sweet, with
the day’s golf capped off by a prime rib so red it would rival their sunburned
cheeks. “That’s desert cool,” I announced, peering down Frank’s driveway at the
gorgeous mid-century modernist home. “That’s retro, baby.”
Frank Bogert, Palm
Springs’ mayor from 1958 to 1966, remembers when golf arrived in the
dunes of Riverside
County. “Tennis and horses
were the big draw,” Bogert says. “I was traveling the country to promote my dude
ranch and everyone kept asking why there was no 18-hole course in Palm Springs.” Bogert got
in touch with Johnny Dawson (a top amateur of the era), and “got an 18-holer
built on chewing gum and loans from an insurance company.”
Designed by Lawrence Hughes, Thunderbird Country
Club, with its red fescue grass (later changed to rye/Bermuda), was where
golf-crazed celebrities first came to nest. Hope and Crosby bought lots
bordering the course. Tamarisk Country Club, Indian Wells and Eldorado soon
followed. “You can thank Thunderbird for golf carts,” Bogert adds. “We had a
member from Texas with a bum leg who got permission from
the board of directors to use a gasoline-powered thing that four guys had to sit
on to keep steady. He brought in a doctor’s note to convince the board he really
needed it.”
