Bighorn Golf Club

Bighorn has 36 holes on two very different courses. The Mountains course, designed by Arthur Hills and opened in 1991, is the older of the two, a target-style layout routed over natural desert terrain with steep elevation changes and plenty of water. Tom Fazio's Canyons course opened in December 1998 on a 90-acre parcel across Highway 74, and Golf Digest named it one of the country's top 100 courses within months of opening. A cart tunnel under the highway links the two. Over the years the club has hosted The Skins Game, the U.S. Senior Match Play Challenge, the made-for-television Battle at Bighorn featuring Tiger Woods, and the LPGA's Samsung World Championship, played on the Canyons course from 2004 to 2007. A Golf Learning Center with video and launch-monitor bays supports year-round instruction.

The clubhouse sits at 255 Palowet Drive and anchors a campus that has kept growing. The club describes its Spa and Wellness Center as one of the first premium club spas in the country, and members also have court sports, bocce, a children's park, dog parks and several places to eat, including the Canyons Steak House, The Marketplace and The Pour House. The most unusual amenity is The Vault, a members-only car gallery that opened in November 2015 with about 24,000 square feet of space for 50 cars and four motorcycles. Its Redline Lounge, complete with a racing simulator, overlooks both the showroom and the eighth fairway of the Mountains course. A concierge team and member transportation round out a service-heavy, resort-style approach.

Bighorn publishes its initiation fees, which is rare in the desert. A Club Membership, covering the social calendar and non-golf amenities for a member and spouse or partner, carries a $275,000 initiation. A Golf Membership, which adds unlimited play on both courses, practice facilities and instruction, carries a $375,000 initiation. The club describes these as non-equity, non-voting and non-transferable, and annual dues are not listed on its website. Membership is subject to residency requirements, and real estate sources describe it as open to Bighorn homeowners only, so most buyers think about the house and the membership together. Bighorn's history helps explain the model: the community was begun by Westinghouse, and in 1996 R.D. Hubbard and a group of member investors bought the land and development rights.

The community is split between the Mountains and Canyons sides of Highway 74, and the club counts about 500 homes. Housing runs from freestanding, semi-custom villas built in small enclaves close to golf and dining, to large custom estates on hillside lots with long views over the Coachella Valley. Listings range from roughly 2,400 square feet to more than 10,000, and custom homesites still come to market for buyers who want to build. The club reports more than $2.4 billion in real estate sales over its history. Because the terrain is so steep, two homes a short walk apart can have very different settings, from fairway frontage to a perch high above the course, and lot position matters a great deal here.

Bighorn runs a busy calendar of dinners, parties and member events, and the club leans into family through its Family First program and a children's park. It also has a strong giving culture. Members, individually and through the club's BAM effort, have contributed $43 million to Eisenhower Health, and Bighorn Golf Club Charities has awarded more than 400 scholarships. Day to day, the location is a quiet advantage: the gates sit just up Highway 74 from El Paseo, so shopping, restaurants and the rest of the valley are minutes away, while the hillside setting feels removed from the valley floor.