China Lake Golf Club sits on the grounds of Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, the vast military installation that dominates the high desert landscape around Ridgecrest in Kern County. Like many military courses across the country, it exists primarily to serve the personnel and families stationed at one of the Navy's most significant research and testing facilities — a community in an otherwise remote stretch of the Mojave where recreational options carry real weight.
The terrain here is pure Mojave: arid, sun-baked, and wide open, with the Sierra Nevada rising to the west and the Coso Range visible to the north. Desert courses in this part of California tend to reward course management over power — errant shots find unforgiving ground fast, and the near-constant wind that sweeps across the high desert adds a variable that no scorecard ever captures.
Ridgecrest itself is a small city shaped almost entirely by the naval base, which means China Lake Golf Club is genuinely community golf in the truest sense — a place where the game is woven into the rhythm of daily life on the installation.
