"Roughly the amount of water that is necessary for one hole of golf." That's how Doug Sheres, a managing member of the development group behind DSRT Surf, described the annual water draw for a five and a half acre surf lagoon going up behind Desert Willow Golf Resort. It sounds like the kind of thing a developer says to get ahead of a complaint. In this case, the local water district's own numbers back him up.
If you live in South Palm Desert, you've probably clocked the construction behind the fences off Country Club Drive without knowing quite what it was. For a couple of years it was just cranes and a lagoon-shaped hole in the ground next to Desert Willow's Firecliff and Mountain View courses. As of this summer it has a name, a water pool that generates its own surf, and, according to the most specific reporting available, a late July 2026 opening date. The obvious reaction is to assume a wave pool in the desert is a water problem waiting to happen. The Coachella Valley Water District's own estimates say otherwise.
The Water Math Nobody Expected
CVWD, which signed off on the project's environmental review, put the lagoon's annual water demand at roughly 73 acre-feet a year. For comparison, the district estimates an average 18-hole golf course in the valley uses about 955 acre-feet a year. One acre-foot runs about 326,000 gallons, so the gap is not a rounding error.
| Estimated annual water use | |
|---|---|
| DSRT Surf lagoon | ~73 acre-feet |
| Average 18-hole valley golf course | ~955 acre-feet |
| Projected savings from Desert Willow turf conversion | ~106.75 acre-feet |
The developer paired the lagoon with what it calls a "Turf for Surf" swap: about 20 acres of Desert Willow's own fairway turf converted to drought-tolerant plantings, an effort Sheres said would save roughly 106.75 acre-feet a year, more than the lagoon uses in total. Some of the more recent trade coverage cites a slightly different figure (30 acres, closer to 35 million gallons saved against 24 million used), which tells you the exact acreage has moved around as the project finished construction. What hasn't moved is the direction of the math: every public estimate, from the 2024 groundbreaking through this year's opening coverage, has the project as a net water saver against the golf holes it sits beside.
What's Actually Going In
The lagoon itself runs on Wavegarden's Cove platform, the same wave-generating system operating in Australia, Bristol, and South Korea, and this is its first build in California. Developer materials describe a 52-module system capable of pushing out waves fast enough to keep a rotating lineup of surfers moving, with public figures for simultaneous capacity landing somewhere in the 70 to 90 range depending on which release you read.
Around the lagoon, the plans include:
- A surf academy for lessons and progression, aimed at people who have never stood on a board
- A leisure and lounge pool separate from the surf lagoon
- Pickleball courts and a skate park
- Food and beverage service on site
- Walking access to Desert Willow's Firecliff and Mountain View courses
A hotel and a set of 57 private villas were part of the original plan the Palm Desert City Council approved back in 2019, when the project carried a roughly $200 million price tag. The pandemic slowed construction, and the city later extended some of the project's escrow deadlines while the developer scaled back an early four-story hotel concept. What opened this summer is the wave park and its surrounding amenities. The hotel and residential phase, per the development team, is still on the calendar but without a firm date.
Who Actually Paid for It
Desert Wave Ventures LLC bought the 17 to 18 acre site from the city for about $2.5 million and broke ground at a Thursday ceremony on May 23, 2024. The city had originally set aside $20 million in bonds to help cover public infrastructure tied to the project. That backstop is no longer part of the deal. City spokesperson Thomas Soule told The Desert Sun the project is now funded entirely privately, which means the bonds authorized years ago never got tapped.
That detail matters if you've watched other Coachella Valley developments get held up by financing questions. This one changed structure mid-stream and still made it to an opening.
Not a Stranger Running the Front Desk
Beach Street, the company operating DSRT Surf, hired Michael Gerano as vice president and general manager to run day-to-day operations. Gerano has more than 20 years in hospitality leadership and has lived in Palm Desert for the past decade, which is a small but real detail if you've wondered whether a project this size gets handed off to someone with no local footing.
Palm Desert's mayor, Evan Trubee, put the city's read on the project this way:
"It's the kind of project that reflects who we are as a city."
That framing lines up with how Palm Desert has run Desert Willow for years. The course is city-owned, managed by KemperSports, and residents can already get a Resident Golf Card for $52 a year by showing proof of residency at the Palm Desert Community Center, which comes with a three-day advance booking window ahead of the general public. Whether DSRT Surf builds a similar resident rate into its own pricing hasn't been announced. Given the city's history with the golf side of the property, it's a reasonable thing to ask about before assuming the general public rate is your only option.
Where This Leaves You If You're Not Right Next Door
Desert Willow sits off Country Club Drive near Frank Sinatra Drive, which is a cross-town drive from the Ironwood end of South Palm Desert, not a stop on your regular errand loop. It's the same relationship the neighborhood already has with The Living Desert on Portola: close enough to be part of how residents talk about their week, not close enough to walk to.
The valley isn't short on manmade surf right now. Palm Springs Surf Club has been running for a while, and Coral Mountain in La Quinta is still working toward a larger wave-pool project of its own. DSRT Surf is a different build with different technology, and it's the one that just opened walking distance from a golf course most Palm Desert residents already know by name.
None of this changes anything about home values or market timing in South Palm Desert. It's the kind of addition that changes what a Tuesday afternoon looks like if you live nearby: a new place to send visiting grandkids, a new reason to loop past Desert Willow on a drive, one more thing that makes this stretch of the valley feel like it's adding to itself rather than just repeating the same handful of options every season.
If you're weighing a move to this side of the valley, or you already call it home and want a neighbor who tracks what's actually changing here rather than what a listing sheet says, reach out to Team Armstrong. We live here too, and we'd rather talk about the wave lagoon than the square footage first.
