Empire Lakes Golf Course
Designed by Arnold Palmer
History
Rancho Cucamonga in the mid-1990s was a city in the middle of reinvention, and Empire Lakes arrived in 1996 as part of that larger story — a golf course built to anchor a growing corner of the Inland Empire and give the region something it hadn’t had before: a design bearing the name of one of the sport’s genuine icons.
Arnold Palmer’s involvement gave the project immediate credibility, and his design group approached the site with the pragmatism that marked much of his firm’s California work during that era. Palmer courses of the period tended to favor playability for a broad range of golfers over pure spectacle, and Empire Lakes followed that pattern, built to serve a growing municipal population as much as any aspirational golfing crowd.
Ownership and management of the course shifted over the years that followed, as is common with municipal-adjacent facilities in fast-developing Southern California suburbs, and the surrounding land itself became a subject of periodic redevelopment discussion as Rancho Cucamonga’s urban footprint expanded around it. Through those changes, the course retained its identity as the Palmer-designed layout that helped put the city’s golf ambitions on the map in the final years of the twentieth century.
Playing Notes
Water is the main obstacle to manage here, with lakes coming into play on several holes and demanding real decisions on club selection off the tee and into greens. The terrain is flat, so the challenge comes from placement rather than elevation change or blind shots, which makes this a good test for golfers who can shape shots and take a bit off the driver when needed. Carts are the norm given the distance between some holes, though the layout stays open enough that you're rarely fighting overhanging trees or tight chutes. Bring extra balls if you're prone to pushing shots right, check the pin sheet for water carries before you commit to driver on the tighter holes, and expect greens that will hold a well-struck approach, rewarding golfers who prioritize hitting the correct section of each green over just finding the putting surface.