Desert Unicorn

Ladera GC realizes the dreams of Irving Azoff and Eddy Cue
Photos by Channing Benjamin
A truism in golf: Nobody likes waiting to hit their next shot.
A truism in golf & life: The smartest, savviest and most successful portion of the populace doesn’t wait. They act.
In the golf-rich Coachella Valley, such proactivity has resulted in not only the most magical chapter across the region’s 120-plus course count catalog, but what may well be a mystical epilogue in the course narrative of SoCal desert golf.
The brainchild of music and entertainment icon Irving Azoff and senior Apple executive Eddy Cue, the recently-debuted Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner-designed Ladera Golf Club isn’t merely the greatest golf course in the Valley – it is deservedly in the discussion as one of the best new courses in the world.
“Let’s Build Our Own Golf Course”
“AND WHEN ALEXANDER SAW THE BREADTH OF HIS DOMAIN, HE WEPT, for there were no more worlds to conquer,” so offered Hans Gruber in Die Hard, borrowing the words from Plutarch.
Irving Azoff, contrarily, is not a man in need of tissues. Rather, time and again, he merely finds new worlds to conquer.
Across a half-century as personal manager of the Eagles, Azoff has further managed the likes of Jimmy Buffet, Stevie Nicks, Warren Zevon and Steely Dan; oh, and his golden touch has further extended to: serving as producer for a taut list of films, including Urban Cowboy, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and The Hurricane; running both MCA and Giant Records, respectively; becoming CEO of Ticketmaster; serving as fulcrum between Ticketmaster’s merger with concert promotion giant Live Nation (concurrently becoming Chairman of the latter); and co-founding the Oak View Group, among the globe’s largest developers of sports and entertainment venues.
At the close of 2022, Azoff’s longtime affinity for the Coachella Valley was amply-echoed with Oak View’s debut of state-of-the-art concert and entertainment venue Acrisure Arena in Palm Desert; a game-changing addition to the desert, the arena’s chief tenant, the CV Firebirds of the American Hockey League, have fast exclamated the arena’s renown and visibility with consecutive trips to the league’s Calder Cup Championship finals in the team’s first two seasons of play.
A 2020 inductee into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Azoff was part of a Hall class which included Whitney Houston, Nine Inch Nails and The Notorious B.I.G. Still ever-avid and active in the music game at 77-years-old, Azoff’s umbrella of endeavors includes Full Stop Management, for which his son, Jeffrey Azoff, serves as founder and CEO; Full Stop’s current roster includes U2, Harry Styles, Gwen Stefani, John Mayer and Lizzo.
Among the full mantle of successes, however, Azoff’s introduction to golf wasn’t among them. After taking his initial cut while in college at the University of Illinois – “First swing, persimmon driver, I hit the ball, the head comes off and goes farther than the ball,” he remembers – he wouldn’t touch a club again for over two decades.
The swing revisit would eventually take place in the ‘90s when the Eagles reunited for the “Hell Freezes Over Tour,” and late frontman Glenn Frey gave Azoff a first real taste of addiction — golf.
“Glenn at that point was an avid golfer,” says Azoff. “He taught me to play all these great courses, and we used to beat each other’s brain out gambling. We were both completely hooked on the game, and we’d kind of book the tour around places that we wanted to stay and golf.”
Not that the pairing of swing and stage met the interest of all Eagles.
“Don Henley would call me up and go, ‘Can you explain why the hell this tour is starting in Charlotte and why we’re staying at Pinehurst? Why are we playing all these dates in the Carolinas, anyway, and why are we staying at Kiawah Island?’” laughs Azoff. “I’d go, ‘Well, you know, Glenn likes to be out in the country,’ and he’d say, ‘Screw that – you guys just wanna’ play golf.’”
Come the Millenium’s turn, Azoff’s talons were dug deep into the game, with Riviera CC in L.A. as home club, coupled with myriad other membership (“I’m probably pretty close to the 14-club limit,” he quips). The affinity/addiction fast passed from parent to progeny, as two of his kids, sons Jeffrey and Cameron Azoff, would become fine players and enjoy golf as a bond with their Force of Nature father.
As for his Ladera cohort, while most men’s accomplishments would be out-shadowed by Azoff’s iconic cast, Eddy Cue isn’t among of them. Apple’s Senior Vice President of Services, the 59-year-old, Miami-born Cue has been with the company since 1989, having started in customer support. In the 36 years since, he’s had a front row rollercoaster seat from the company’s brink of bankruptcy in the ‘90s to being a key figure in Apple’s rise to the largest market cap company in the world ($3.48 trillion).
Among the tech titan’s most veteran executives, Cue’s imprint has involved overseeing everything from iTunes, Apple TV+, Apple Pay, Apple Music, Maps and iCloud.
The palpable pair’s influence and accomplishments considered: Does this sound like two guys who wanna’ wait for the group ahead?
Amid the heart of COVID, Azoff and Cue took shelter with their families (and a longtime pal of note) at The Madison Club in the Coachella Valley pocket of La Quinta.
“Eddy and I and Freddie Couples were here a lot during the pandemic, and it was illegal to play golf for part of that time,” Azoff recalls. “But we’d go out on the fourth fairway with a shag-bag and hit wedges; and other ‘wonderful’ club members would call the police on us. The cops would come and we’d hop on a golf cart and hide in Freddie’s garage, and then go out and hit more balls.”
The reflection serves as an apt microcosm for Azoff’s tale & tenets: Biting wit; rebel at heart; always coming out on top.
Madison, akin to myriad private desert clubs, saw home sales and golf memberships historically soar during the pandemic, with city-dwellers from L.A., Orange County, San Francisco and beyond the seeking the safety and solace of enhanced elbow-room.
As restrictions lightened, course volume became heavy.
“We’re here at Madison one day,” recalls Azoff to ’21, “and we’re standing in the fairway, waiting to hit a shot and looking around at the overuse of the golf course, and Eddy says, ‘To hell with it – let’s build our own golf course.’ And I went, ‘Sure.’”
Recalling the moment, Cue adds:
“Building a golf course, it’s not an idea I’d ever really thought about before, but when I said it to him, I was serious. I’m usually pretty serious when I say things.”
From one conversation in the middle of a fairway, seed to sprout was instantaneous.
“I have a lot of ideas, and Irving is very good at implementing ideas and getting things done,” says Cue. “We make a great team, or, as our wives call it, ‘A scary team.’ When we decide on something, we just go do it.”
Even considering their father’s cache of accomplishments, however, the Azoff boys had initial skepticisms about the pair’s colossal course concept.
“I don’t know if I believed them, to be honest,” remembers Jeffrey Azoff. “It seemed like such an undertaking; such a big, insurmountable task that it wasn’t necessarily real. But once the first domino fell, these guys got very serious very quickly.”
Adds Cameron Azoff:
“When we started touring land, it began to seem real. Once we saw that glimmer of hope, there was no going back.”
Lemon Pledge
WHAT’S ULTIMATLEY MOST REMARKABLE ABOUT LADERA GOLF CLUB isn’t simply how different the course is from anything else in the desert – but how different the course is from most places not in the desert.
The odyssey of alacrity began, per most courses, with the lay of the land.
After touring multiple properties of interest, Azoff and Cue were taken to a 300-plus acre citrus farm in the valley’s outskirts of Thermal.
Contextually, Thermal is an east-end, unincorporated agriculture adjacent to the still-modest populace of the Valley’s epicenter. It’s “out there” even by desert standards. Driving a fast car on an open road from Thermal, one could feasibly reach the domestic Mexican border town of Calexico in just 20-minutes longer than it would take to drive to the Palm Springs International Airport.
Rich soils denote Thermal’s standing amid the Valley’s “Date Capital of the U.S.,” where the Phoenix dactylifera grows in healthy abundance, its long fronds and rough trunks lining the peripheries of much of the city’s bucolic roads.
The fruits further aligned, as it were, for a date with golf destiny.
When Azoff and Cue drove the dusty traverse of Lemon Blossom Lane to a sizeable farm lot featuring ceaseless rows of Eureka lemon and mango trees framed by the Santa Rosa Mountains, they knew they’d found their spot.
“Those other parcels, they were good – but this land turned out to be great,” says Cue. “Closer to the mountains and more elevation in the property than we had found elsewhere.”
Along the same fifth-gear timeline, Azoff and Cue had already begun searching for an architect to frame their vision. Interviews took place with the lofty likes of David McLay Kidd, Andrew Green, Kyle Phillips and the tandem of Coore & Crenshaw.
Through a mutual friend, Azoff and Cue were also connected with Gil Hanse and his design partner, Jim Wagner.
“The architect process was the most fun part of this, and all of these people were great. Andrew Green, incredibly impressive,” says Jeffrey Azoff. “As a nerd of golf architecture, it’s the most fun you can have.”
Of the Coore & Crenshaw meet, the elder Azoff remembers: “They were way backed up, but actually said, ‘Unless you want to wait for us, you should get Gil.’”
While all Azoffs and Cue express impress with the full roster of potential hires, the ownership found themselves in fast harmony with the ever-active Hanse and Wagner.
“There’s a feeling when you meet somebody, if they’re still hungry, if they still want to achieve, do more,” Cue says, “and that’s the feel I got from Gil from the first day.”
Echoes Azoff:
“I wanted Gil; Eddy wanted Gil; my kids wanted Gil,” says Azoff. “And Gil wanted us.”
Amid his cacophony of projects, Hanse vividly recalls how Azoff “sweetened” the deal.
“Irving kinda’ sealed it when we were on his plane, and he had a selection of pies from one of the L.A. restaurants his family owns (and runs), The Apple Pan – and I love pie,” laughs Hanse. “The next day, I’m at (The) Los Angeles Country Club and he sends me a sample slice of every different kind of pie they make.”
After serving-up his sweet center, Azoff presented Hanse the kind of exacting candor which has guided the Eagles to a pair of the top-10 best-selling albums of all-time: “Here’s a blank check: Make it work.”
As for the blank canvas, the owners had concepts both succinct and studied. Namely, Azoff and Cue were intent on what they didn’t want:
Another entry in the Coachella Valley real estate and/or resort-driven golf canon presenting staple, Palm Springs’ postcard elements of: palm-lined routings; contrived water features; and homes propped on high lots overlooking bowled or sunken fairways.
From the git, the aim was to unchain Hanse from seven-plus decades of desert design signatures.
“One of the first things I said to Gil was, ‘We’re not interested in being a housing development,’” recalls Azoff. “His eyes lit up from that. And then I told him that we were interested in building a desert golf course that feels simpatico with the desert, meaning that I don’t want any cart paths, I don’t want any ‘scum ponds’ or any palm trees – not one on-property.’ And Gil said, ‘Fantastic.’”
Ladera proved a family-affair project from the outset. While’s Cue’s sons, Adam and Spencer, are new to the game, the Azoff boy are a pair of bona fide players: Jeffrey Azoff is a three-time Match Play champion at Riviera and qualified for 42nd USGA Mid-Am Championship; his younger brother, Cameron Azoff, competed in the historic Northeast Amateur Invitational on dual occasions.
In tandem, the Azoff brothers authored a lengthy essay compiling course and design elements that inspired them about the game.
All parties world-traveled, the ownership then shared in full their design favorites and fondness’s, both broad and esoteric, ranging from: the routing at Muirfield; the 9th green at Oakmont; the style and aesthetic of Shinnecock; the dune features of Hanse and Wagner’s new Ohoopee Match Club in Georgia; and the George C. Thomas scorecard signature of a getable par-5 opener followed by a tough par-4 second.
From the gate, concepts from the Hanse/Wagner side confirmed that Ladera would prove a desert unicorn.
Among early elements discerned: A links-style, walking-only course. From an agronomy vantage, the absence of pathing would be paired with a single-cut style from tee-to-green, grassed throughout all seasons with MiniVerde greens and TifTuf Bermudagrass tees and fairways.
While a few handfuls of Valley clubs have transitioned their putting surfaces to year-round MiniVerde in recent years, Ladera’s decision to run with Bermuda – which enters dormancy in the winter months — and eschew the desert’s annual, autumnal overseed season of adding ryegrass to the fray is a chimera complete for Palm Springs’ golf properties needing to sate homeowners’ lush views come peak-season.
“We were very excited about no overseed,” says Hanse. “We didn’t want a course based on green aesthetics; it was more, ‘This is the way the turf is going to be at this time of year,’ with a course that will be bouncy, firm and fast.”
Situated across the Hanse/Wagner calendar in a build timeline of just 10 months, (December of ’21 — September of ’22), the taut window occurred between their projects at Lake Merced G.C. in San Francisco and the Golf Club of Tennessee (Upper Course).
With concepts expressed by owners and architects, Ladera’s design, landscape and shaping set sail. Blank check and blank canvas presented, the former got out of the latter’s way.
“It’s like, you don’t tell Picasso how to paint,” smiles Jeffrey Azoff, “you hire Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner and you turn ‘em loose.”
Ultimately manipulating two million cubic yards of dirt (“More than we’ve ever moved; it was a different scale of project for us,” says Hanse) ongoing unveil of the land sans citrus trees (which were either sold or replanted as course peripheries) revealed an even more exceptional canvas: a compelling, natural pitch away from the mountainside in what would ultimately prove paramount to course flow, 360-degree views and subtle elevation changes of 200 feet across the property.
Slightly, if not carefully straying from the architect’s axiom of deference to all bosses, Hanse is now able reflect on the mission, the creation and the culture of something truly special.
“With Irving and Eddy being in these creative industries, I think this made them uniquely qualified to give us this stage where we could show our creativity,” says Hanse, “probably to the highest level of any project, any canvas we’ve ever had opportunity to create upon.”
Designed with old school green-to-tee segues and sporting massive landing areas from tees which can stretch to 7,705 yards, Ladera plays with ample ground-game influence, a feature which will only enhance in bound come the winter months of Bermuda dormancy.
“We like wide corridors, we like angles, we like the ability for there to be a simplicity in the presentation of the course,” details Hanse. “Because it’s so wide, we didn’t feel like we needed to have rough. The edges of the holes become a big part of the playing experience; they’re not technically a hazard, but they become something you’re worried about, if the ball were to run and run into those areas.”
While Ladera’s undulating (and fun/tough) putting surfaces are oft-situated with a “lay there” element, mounded greenside features and thin-cut collars present both challenge and opportunity for varied up-and-down clubs. The element of infinity-style bunkering which bleeds into desertscape makes for superb, raw beauty, putting onus on studied approaches while concurrently linking holes with a totally natural feel of continuity.
“When you think of the best, natural golf courses,” says Hanse, “there’s this continuation, this flow of landforms from one hole to the next.”
Relating Ladera to one of his latest, non-golf ventures of which Oak View Group is a consultancy party, Azoff parallels:
“The Sphere happens to be a venue in Las Vegas, but it’s not a Las Vegas venue; this golf course happens to be here, but it’s not a typical Coachella Valley golf course,” he says. “If you just got dropped on this course from Mars, you’d look at the mountains, look at the layout and you’d probably need a minute to figure out exactly where you are – and that’s the intent.”
Intent achieved.
Split at its center with a barranca running through much of the routing, the rustic aesthetic therein is a material mix of Sycamore trees, Muhlenbergia, annual fescue, Blue grama, Purple threeawn, sheep fescue, red fescue, little bluestem and chewings fescue – none of which was previously on the grounds.
The resulting feel?
When coupled with Ladera’s railroad tie walking paths, the nascent grounds have achieved a look of not being new at all. Rather, come the late afternoons of omnipresent quietude, with the sun half-shadowing the mountain surrounds in layered mirage, it feels like Ladera has been around for 100 years. It feels like it’s supposed to be there.
The Best Course. The Last Course.
LADERA, FROM SPANISH TO ENGLISH, translates to “hillside.”
For Irving Azoff and Eddy Cue, it translates to much, much more.
While the completed course — along with Ladera’s nine-hole Par-3, the tongue/cheeked “Q & A” — exceeded expectations for all involved, the logistical buildout of course and club proved a task testing even men of the owner’s echelon.
Azoff and Cue equally grant that, amid their laundry list of respective accomplishments, getting to the finish line with Ladera has proven the toughest job of their lives.
“This has been the hardest thing to get done,” says Azoff. “Not the golf course, but the infrastructure and everything else – the wall around the property, the berms, the roads, the decisions about water usage, the entitlements – I had no idea how tough it would be.”
The pair painstakingly learned why Ladera is the first new championship course to be built in Riverside County – the fourth-largest county in the nation’s most populated state — since 2008.
Comparing his iCourse to his iCloud, Cue is inclined to concur with his partner about the challenges presented by the project.
“At Apple, when we’re building products, we’re in control of them,” Cue says. “Here, with the course, there’s the county, all these utility companies; just a lot of third parties that are in control in many ways. So, for me, that’s very different, not having the control that I wish I had, or that I expected.”
Dreamers, beware.
“The economics of this are insane,” continues Azoff. “We’re nuts; crazy. But it’s why Eddy and I have worked all our lives, so we could do something like this — if you’re gonna’ work this hard, you wanna’ win at it. But the economics make no sense; completely irrational. I’ve had calls from people asking me to partner with them on other new courses out here, and I’ve told
them all the same thing: ‘You should have your damn head examined. You have no idea what you’re getting into.’”
Concurs Cue:
“You have to be a little crazy to do this; actually, it’s beyond crazy,” he laughs. “If you sat around and thought of smart things to do, it wouldn’t be this.”
After the club’s debut to a select membership, the Ladera time and toil was not lost on the owners’ broods.
“I’ve never seen him pour as much effort and time and emotion into how much he cares about this place,” says Cameron Azoff of his father.
Cost, minutia and red tape aside, the owners kept a trio of guiding principles as beacon: Excellence, family and legacy.
“Obviously, they’ll both have legacies that the public is gonna’ know; things that are substantial and that they’re famous for,” says Hanse. “But, at some point and time, the most important legacy is what you’ve created for the memory bank of your family. Irving has referenced this repeatedly – Ladera, being there with his friends and his sons, it’s his happiest place on the planet.”
Their respective, prodigious successes considered, both Azoff and Cue know that, eventually, “Hotel California” will fade from classic rock to the recesses of classical music, just as, someday, every fresh app or iPhone will eventually be deleted or recycled or replaced by a new model or maker.
But the land? The land will last.
“When we first talked about doing something special, we talked about the legacy. We think this is something that will certainly outlast us, hopefully by a long time, something we’ll be able to pass down to our kids,” concludes Cue. “A lot of the things that we’ve worked on in our lives, they may not be remembered as much as this. Ladera is something physical that can last for a very long time, can last forever.”