Westin Mission Hills Pete Dye Course Review

Texas Outside Rating: 8.6

Golf - Resort Public Course · 18 Holes · Par 70
Rancho Mirage, CA
Website

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Westin Mission Hills Pete Dye Course Review

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.

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Course Slope & Ratings

Tee Box Yardage Rating Slope
Blue 6,158 69.5 125
White 5,587 66.6 118
Gold 6,706 72.1 130
Red 4,841 67.4 121

Course Information

Course Architect:
Pete Dye
Greens Condition
9.2
Greens Difficulty
8.5
Fairway Condition
9.2
Bunker Condition
9.2
GPS:
No
Walkable:
Easy
Beware of water on 7 holes and the 70 sand traps.

Texas Outside Rating

Overall Rating:
8.6 out of 10
Beauty:
9.2
Difficulty:
8.5
Variety:
8.0
Fun to Play:
8.8
Value:
8.0
Condition:
9.3
Front Nine Rating:
8.5
Back Nine Rating:
8.8
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FEES & AMENITIES

Approximate Weekend
Rates: $85.00 to $160.00

Service is very good, the facilities are excellent, the Westin Resort is perfect for a fun stay and play, the food is good, the practice facilites are excellent, and the pro shop is well stocked.

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Here's How Texas Outside Determines the Scorecard Rating

The Texas Outside rating scale ranges from 1 to 10 – a perfect 10 course would be something like this:  links along a cliff overlooking the Pacific ocean and bordered by tall trees; lush fairways on rolling hills with lots of natural hazards; water (which is crystal clear) on most of the holes; immaculate greens (but they are undulating and tough); lots of variety and character (each hole is completely different and includes blind shots, elevation changes, doglegs, and significant challenges); perfectly manicured traps with the whitest and prettiest sand you’ve ever seen; a nice club house with great food and a 19th hole; a GPS; plenty of beverage carts or your own cooler and ice; and it only costs $40 bucks! What this means is that you probably won’t find any 10s in Texas – try Cabo San Lucas, Pebble Beach, or some of the Hawaii courses! 
Texas Outside rates courses on the following:

  • Beauty – tall trees, rolling hills, beautiful houses, waterfalls, and similar stuff would score high; a 1 would be flat, bushes or cactus instead of trees, and some grass but mostly weeds
  • Difficulty – a straight, 300 yard par 4 with no traps or hazards, no out of bounds or water would probably get a 1; if it is a 460 yard par 4 over two ravines, with water along one side, natural hazards on the other, strategically placed traps or that dreaded tree right in the middle of the fairway, we are talking a 10. 
  • Variety – what would you give a course where all the holes looked and played exactly the same (“I thought we just played that hole!”); were side-by-side, which is good for finding or dodging other people’s balls, but not much fun; and you can see the flag from every tee box?  That’s right, it gets a 1.
  • Fun Scale – a 10 is where you walk off the course and say “now that was fun” and you can’t wait to get back, or you immediately turn around and play another 18 holes
  • Value – a 5 is $50 to $60, a 10 is $20 to $30, and 1 is $200 or so – of course all of this is dependent upon how you liked the course.  For example, if a run down, boring municipal course, with six players on each hole was only $10; it would still get a value rating of 1.
  • Condition – this one’s pretty easy – what condition are the fairways. A 10 commands very lush perfectly manicured fairways, compared to a 1, which has fire ants, weeds, and more dirt than grass!
  • Condition of Greens and Difficulty – very hard to read greens with lots of undulation and tough pin placement, rate very high on the difficulty scale.  Condition is self-explanatory.  

All of the above determines the overall score for the golf course.  In other words, we like courses that are pretty, fun, very challenging with a lot of variety, and fairways and greens in excellent condition – all for $40.  We also tend to play the courses that are affordable for the masses, which means in the $30 to $80 range. We rate hard and we haven’t found a 10 in Texas yet – don’t worry we haven’t given up and we’re still looking.