By BRENT LONG
I'm packing my bags and heading to Scottsdale, Arizona to tee it up at Desert Forest GC, Superstition Mountain Golf and Country Club, We-Ko-Pa Cholla and finally Southern Dunes Golf Club.
Don't know much about these four courses yet, - except Desert Forest, is one of Arizona's oldest desert diamonds and the only course in the state that has been rated among Golf Digest's "Top 100 Courses in America'' ever since the ratings came out in 1967. My friends and I played the We-Ko-Pa Saguaro Course during our first tour of the desert in 2008 and promised each other we'd get back to see the Cholla layout, so here we go.
Golf is addictive, but golf in the desert is even more alluring. It will be our third guys-getaway to the Scottsdale area. It's a direct flight out of Buffalo for under $150 each way on Southwest Airlines, so flying doesn't get any easier. We rent a car, which gives us the flexibility to move around and choose courses that may be a little further out of town. Over the years we have played eight courses and seven of them have been real winners. That's one of the great things about planning a golf trip to the Scottsdale area – the options are truly endless.
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We opened last year's tour with an enjoyable round at ASU Karsten GC designed by Pete Dye in nearby Tempe in 1989. It's actually only 10 minutes from Sky Harbour International Airport and would be perfect for those who want to fly and play golf in the same day! There aren't any Dye courses in Canada that I'm aware of and set in the shadows of ASU's looming Sun Devil Stadium, it was fun to play and in a cool location. The course has wide forgiving fairways that run and roll with mounding throughout the course. It's got your typical Dye pot bunkers, mounds, grass moguls, and swales, bulk headed water hazards, with large waste bunkers. The greens are multi-tiered, fast with good undulations, and very well maintained. The course is named after the late Karsten Solheim, the founder of the Ping Golf Company who was a benefactor to the university. It's very walkable, has a nice range to warm up on and for well under $100 worth the price of admission.
I travel light, so I picked up a dozen Dixon Golf balls. The company that sells the world's first 100 per cent recyclable golf ball is based in Mesa, Arizona, so why not support a local company and I even brought a couple home with me!
Take it up a notch, actually a couple - we headed over to Eagle Mountain GC in nearby Fountain Hills. I didn't think it actually rained in Scottsdale area, but I was wrong – still better than snow! Eagle Mountain has the best views of any course we played and it was a lot of fun. You need a cart for this hilly 6,777-yard, par-71 layout and many of the fairways are actually concave in design so that brings the ball back to the center. The toughest challenge for a first-timer is adapting to the greens which are loaded with undulations, slopes and tiers. One of the most unique holes is No. 3, a 210 yard downhill shot to a big green that is walled off in its own canyon. They call this one "Solitude". With a short drivable par-4 on 17 and one of the best views in golf from the tee of the par-4 18th, the finish is exquisite. It will cost you $150 and up to play the course, but we'd do it again without the rain. |
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ASU Karsten |
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Greyhawk Talon |
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Golf is golf and looking back, one of the things we did that I remember most is attending my first Phoenix Coyotes NHL game with the Minnesota Wild in town. It's a bit of a hike to Glendale, but we were able to buy great seats the day of the game and it didn't hurt that the Coyotes won! We'll go back again. Did you know that season tickets are advertised on the boards starting at $10 a game, imagine that in Toronto!
Round three took us to TPC Scottsdale and the Stadium Course, the home of what is now called the Waste Management Phoenix Open, formerly the FBR Open. A great experience, a wonderful course designed by Jay Morrish and Tom Weiskopf, but it was also the most expensive round of the tour coming in at just over $200, so it's not for everyone.
For the final round we teed it up on the Talon Course at Grayhawk GC. Especially memorable in my books are the par-3 11th hole called "Swinging Bridge" and the par-4 13th, infamously known as "Heaven of Hell" because of the risk-reward value that is placed on the tee shot from 305 yards. It was by far the most playable of the courses we played and the fact that I pared each of the four par-3s that day didn't hurt.
As for a place to stay, we spent a couple of nights at the AAA Five-Diamond Fairmont Scottsdale, which is home to TPC Scottsdale and a couple of nights at the very comfortable XONA Resort Suites, which is right across the road. Can't go wrong with either and we'll be staying again at XONA.
All photos courtesy of Scottsdale Convention & Visitors Bureau.
12/10
