Scottsdale, Wickenburg and Phoenix during Waste Management week

[sabram]

I returned from my annual trip to Arizona last week. In the past few years I’ve played We-Ko-Pa and Talking Stick on most trips but skipped them this year. February is an expensive time of year to play golf in the Phoenix area and the week of the Waste Management event at TPC makes it harder than most weeks to find reasonably priced tee times. On this trip I played:

Desert Mountain – Cochise (guest of member)

Legend Trail ($122)

Troon North - Pinnacle ($225)

Camelback – Ambiente ($135)

Wickenburg Ranch (36 holes) ($140 for two rounds)

Papago ($86)

 

https://www.flickr.c...57680138210066/ DM Cochise pix

 

https://www.flickr.c...57676728794993/ Legend Trail pix

 

https://www.flickr.c...57676919071843/ TN Pinnacle pix

 

https://www.flickr.c...57680258178456/ Wickenburg Ranch pix

 

https://www.flickr.c...57680363977686/ Camelback Ambiente pix

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/golfcoursepix/albums/72157677027444563 Papago Pix

 

 

Cochise, Legend Trail, Pinnacle and Wickenburg are all stylistically similar desert courses. Each is beautiful with a lot of eye candy photo opportunities and in immaculate condition from tee to green. Each has numerous tee shots that carry over desert waste areas, arroyos that cross fairways requiring a focus on distance accuracy and club selection in making decisions on whether you can carry them or need to lay-up.

 

Desert Mountain Cochise #18 from tee 303

 

Legend Trail #2 from tee 310

 

Troon North Pinnacle #15 from tee 425

 

Wickenburg Ranch #14 from tee 536

 

I'll add a separate post for each course in this thread over the next few days

[sabram]

Cochise is one of six private Nicklaus courses located within the gated Desert Mountain community of multi-million dollar homes that can be seen from many of the holes. The Desert Mountain courses have a reputation of being very difficult, but I only found a few shots on the extreme side. The par three 7^th is a tough cookie. It uses a double green that is virtually surrounded by water and is shared with #15. The green isn’t very deep and there is a rockpile in front of the center of the green that separates the portions of the green used by each hole. The 6^th hole is a par 4 that has two greens in play. The easier version of the hole uses a green on the right. However, the members usually play the tougher green on the left which is protected by a rocky natural area that requires a deft touch on the approach. The approach to the 10^th green requires you to navigate a rocky outcropping in front of the green, the difficulty of which is dependent on the angle you approach it from. I think this is a course you can score better on after a few rounds. I don’t think I’ve ever seen javelinas (a type of wild pig) before. There were about a dozen of them grazing near the tenth green.

 

Desert Mountain Cochise #6 left rough 249 Note two greens - one right and one left above the junk

 

Desert Mountain Cochise #6 pitch over waste area to left side green 251

 

Desert Mountain Cochise #7 par 3 from back tee 252

 

Desert Mountain Cochise #10 from tee 267

 

Desert Mountain Cochise #10 h approach 272

 

Desert Mountain Cochise #10 javelinas 274

 

Desert Mountain Cochise #18 r approach 305

[sabram]

Legend Trail is located about five miles south of Desert Mountain. It was designed by Forrest Richardson, Arthur Jack Snyder and Rees Jones. The greens were re-done since I last played here and the course is better and more fun than I remembered it to be. The fairways were in good shape and provide plenty of width, although they don’t have the same amount of movement as the fairways at Troon North or Desert Mountain. The seventh hole is a par 5 that has a pond on the left side that is hidden form the tee. That pond sucks in anything headed left, so beware. There’s a lot of competition for the golfers’ dollars in Scottsdale but with green fees about half as much as Troon, Grayhawk and the Boulders, I’m a bit surprised that Legend Trail doesn’t get more love.

 

Legend Trail #5 par 3 326

 

Legend Trail #7 pond on left 331

 

Legend Trail #10 from front tee 340

 

Legend Trail #14 pitch over waste area 354

 

Legend Trail #17 pitch to green 363

[YMark]

Nice pics. Would love to play a DM course, but no millionaire friends that live there.

[sabram]

Troon North – Pinnacle is one of the best and most expensive options around Scottsdale. I’ve played Pinnacle and the Monument course numerous times. The only reason I played it on this trip is because a friend from work wanted to play there and it was close to where our business meetings were going to be the next day. The fairways at Pinnacle have lots of movement and that distinguishes it from many of the other courses in the area. However, after many replays many of the holes are just a blur to me, so I’d be hesitant to recommend the course to anyone who is on a budget.

 

Troon North Pinnacle #3 from tee 378

 

Troon North Pinnacle #8 par 3 396

 

Troon North Pinnacle #9 g approach 398

 

Troon North Pinnacle #10 g approach 402

 

Troon North Pinnacle #14 from tee 420

 

Troon North Pinnacle #17 from tee 431

[sabram]

Wickenburg Ranch was the star of this trip. I hadn’t played there before, but will definitely play there again. It’s a long schlep from Phoenix, (an hour and a quarter drive northwest from the airport) but worth it. The green fee was $90 for the morning round and $50 for the replay. The course was built almost ten years ago to be the centerpiece of a real estate community that was put on hold because of the Great Recession. It only opened for play about 2 years ago and construction the homes is now taking off even the homes are not nearly as nice as those at Desert Mountain or Troon. You need to play here soon before the place gets uglified by a thousand houses. The new club house is opening this week. Until now they have been using the restaurant about a half mile up the hill from the first tee as a temporary club house. The course has many interesting and memorable holes and uses the elevation changes very well. Some of my favorites are #3, a par three with a mound on the right front of the green that slopes right to left that can be used to feed balls toward the center; #4, a short par four dogleg left that offers several risk reward options and challenges big hitters to drive the blind green; #5 a very good par five with a tight waste in the most desirable landing area as well as a big bail out area and an approach over an arroyo to an elevated green; #6 is another risk –reward hole, drivable par 4 with a partially hidden water hazard; #9 is a steep uphill par 5 that I really liked (although it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea); #10 has a fairway that runs perpendicular to the tee challenging you to cut off as much as you dare and a green that is hidden in a knoll if you are on the left side of the fairway. The food was also good (excellent, but sloppy, sloppy joes) and sitting by the gas fired fire pits with a beer after the second round was a nice end to the day.

 

Wickenburg Ranch #2 par 3 504

 

Wickenburg Ranch #3 g at dogleg 506

 

Wickenburg Ranch #5 z approach 514

 

Wickenburg Ranch #6 g approach 516

 

Wickenburg Ranch #7 g approach 519

 

Wickenburg Ranch #9 from tee par 5 steep uphill 522

[Argonne69]

Very nice. Agree on Wickenburg. I played it last month. Definitely helps to be an Arizona resident this time of year.

 

Great pics by the way. It was cold and overcast last month. Glad to see that you got some great weather.

 

The Troon courses are great, as are Boulders, but they are definitely not for the budget conscience this time of year.

[Arizonalefty59]

Fantastic stuff, your posts are extremely underrated. Love the pics!

[One_Putt_Blunder]

Great pics as usual Sabram. Except the Javelina F those things. They tear up our complex landscaping and charge us when we're walking the dogs.

[sabram]

Great pics as usual Sabram. Except the Javelina F those things. They tear up our complex landscaping and charge us when we're walking the dogs.

 

I'd never seen them before. They're pretty ugly.

[sabram]

I’m really glad I played Ambiente and Papago as they both offer a different style of course than the four described above. Ambiente is almost a heathland course. If you replaced the beige brush that dominates the rough at Ambiente with purple heather you might imagine that you were in Surrey. The interior corridors are treeless, the fairways are wide and the bunkers are bold and rough around the edges, again many with brush overgrowing the high sides where a heath might have heather. I was paired with two guys from Chicago. One of them could bomb it off the tee, 280 yards and more, but he was directionally challenged. The Fourth hole is a 350 yard par 4 where the tee shot is over a wide expanse of brush to a fairway that angles away from the tee so that you can bite off as much as you want: the further left the shorter the distance to the fairway and the further right the longer the required carry but you shorten the approach to the green. That guy hits one so far right that I assumed it would be lost in the brush. I hit a safe one left of the center bunker and make a routine par. He finds his ball in the thick stuff about 120 yards from the flag, hits and iron from the junk to the back of the green and sinks a 45 foot putt for birdie. He did this three times to win three holes #@#$%)*&^!!!! I liked the tenth hole a lot. It is an unusual hole, a shortish par 4 dogleg left with a split fairway. I enjoyed this course and I think it will appeal to many of the players who appreciate the North course at Talking Stick.

 

 

Camelback Ambiente #2 par 3 443

 

Camelback Ambiente #4 from tee zoomed 448

 

Camelback Ambiente #8 par 3 467

 

Camelback Ambiente #10 from tee hole is left 474

 

Camelback Ambiente #10 x bunkers split fairway 475

 

Camelback Ambiente #12 approach left side of fairway 480

 

Camelback Ambiente #13 from tee 482

[sabram]

Papago is a Phoenix muni course located about 5 miles northeast of Sky Harbor airport. It’s a good and relatively inexpensive choice for a get-away round, but not a course I’d recommend if you are only going to play one round in the Valley of the Sun. It’s the most parkland-like course that I played on this trip. No arroyos and no forced carries over native areas, but a bunch of trees along the fairway corridors. The fairways were over-seeded and are in great shape. So were the bunkers and greens. Many of the fairways have a lot of movement, hillocks, humps (what hump?) and moguls that make for interesting play. I was in the fourth or fifth group to tee off and had asked If I could get moved to an earlier tee time because I had to catch a flight, but the place was packed and there were no earlier openings. The good news is that the pace of play was great and we made the turn in 1 hr. 45 min. The bad news is that I still only played 15 holes. The rough is not over-seeded so the course has the contrast between the bright green fairways and the brown rough. Some of the rough was pretty rough and pebbly, but all-in-all the condition of the course was pretty good.

 

Papago #1 long approach 554

 

Papago #2 from tee 557

 

Papago #5 approach to green tucked left 566

 

Papago #6 from turn in fairway at crest572

 

 

Papago #7 pitch to green 577

 

Papago #11 par 3 586

 

Papago #13 g approach 592ed

[sabram]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/golfcoursepix/collections/72157631875831171/ Link to 28 PHX area photo tours

[JLo_73]

Nicely done. Great pics!!

[golfer912]

Great photos! Use to work at DM. Cochise and Outlaw are my two favorites there. Never had the opportunity to play Wickenburg Ranch but I've heard nothing but rave reviews