I was wondering when this thread would get started. Last week I appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight and had to do some research to get re-familiar with this course. It is the old Palm Springs Municipal, c. 1961 Billy Bell (Wm F. Bell). The corridor width is just 240 feet total, so the Tamarisk tree "hedge" is performing quite a duty to help minimize errant balls to the right.
The adjacent neighborhood — which was reported to be once predominantly black — was never a part of the golf course land and planning. As with many similar course evolvements, plantings along the outer edges of the golf parcel were common. I have no idea if the trees in question were planted to shield the golf course from the outlying "black" neighborhood, but I can certainly see how a row of trees would be called for to help control errant balls.
Interestingly, we found an early 1960s aerial and it shows the hedge in place before many of the homes in this neighborhood were even built. Whether the trees were planted for "racist" reasons can probably be debated and not likely ever resolved. But, after working on and visiting scores of Bell courses over the last 30 years I remain convinced that we would typically see trees densely planted along any corridor less than 300 feet in width...such is the case here.