As a keen tennis player, the more I read about this 45 acre resort the more impressed I am.
La Quinta Resort is located – as its name suggests – in the resort city of La Quinta in the Cochella Valley, just 20 miles from the wealthy city of Palm Springs in southern California. The resort’s website hails it as “A desert oasis for relaxation and renewal”. Surrounded by palm trees and nestled at the foot of the Santa Rosa mountains (a short mountain range just east of the Los Angeles Basin), the location is certainly idyllic.
The resort itself is all whitewashed walls, red-tiled roofs, immaculate grounds with manicured lawns, and luxury suites. La Quinta’s origins date back to 1926, when it was opened by the entrepreneurial Walter H. Morgan as a golfing resort for the rich & famous.
Golf
Golf still dominates, with 5 golf courses and 3 golf clubhouses, home to the PGA West Golf Academy which offers members and guests access to top golf professionals and video analysis. This resort is arguably the number 1 golf destination in the United States.
Tennis
La Quinta Resort boasts over a dozen outdoor hard-court tennis courts, all with floodlighting. There is also an impressive centre court which has been played on by world number 1 Novak Djokovic. This tennis court has an attractive ampitheatre seating area running along one side of the court and lawns surrounding the other three sides. USPTA certified tennis coaches are on hand for group or individual lessons.
Indian Wells Masters
This ATP Masters 1000 tournament is a major date in the tennis calendar. Otherwise known as the BNP Paribas Open, it will be held this year from 6 – 19 March. There are lots of ATP points up for grabs, so this event attracts the world’s top players. La Quinta Resort can organise tickets for you and arrange transport to and from this event, which is just 20 miles drive away.
Picketball
La Quinta has 8 picketball courts, which are less than a third of the size of a tennis court, more the size of a doubles badminton court. The balls and rackets are different too: plastic balls and wooden/composite paddles, like oversized table-tennis bats or the kind of bats you see used on the beach.
Spa La Quinta
This luxury spa offers a range of massage treatments (such as the warmed basalt-stone massage), exfoliations, body-wraps.
Fitness Centre
The well-equipped fitness centre has treadmills, exercise bikes, spin bikes, a rowing machine and a range of resistance machines and free weights. As a personal trainer in London, I encourage my clients to keep working out when they’re on holiday, and to make the most of the fitness facilities in their hotel or resort.
In addition to all the above, the resort offers indoor and outdoor yoga, swimming (there are a total of 41 swimming pools of varying shapes and sizes), three restaurants, two cafes, and bike rental to explore the local area. You can also join organised hiking groups into the desert and mountains.
(Dominic Londesborough is a personal trainer in London and a keen tennis player.)
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