Porcupine Creek (Closed)

Few golf courses in America were ever built with less regard for conventional thinking about what a golf course should be. Porcupine Creek was the private estate course of Larry Ellison, the Oracle co-founder and one of the wealthiest people on the planet, constructed entirely for his personal use and that of his invited guests on the grounds of his sprawling Rancho Mirage compound. It was, in the most literal sense, a golf course built for an audience of 1.

Rancho Mirage sits in the Coachella Valley, where the Santa Rosa Mountains drop sharply into the desert floor and the air is dry and still for most of the year. This is serious golf country — Thunderbird, Tamarisk, Mission Hills, and the rest of the valley's storied private clubs are all neighbors — and the region has hosted professional events and housed presidents and celebrities for decades. Porcupine Creek occupied some of the most dramatic terrain in that landscape.

The course has since closed, its future tied entirely to the fate of the estate itself. It leaves behind almost no public record — no archived scorecards passed around at the turn, no member photographs on a clubhouse wall. It existed outside the usual grammar of golf entirely, which made it one of the most singular layouts the game has ever seen.