yeah I agree tuq, I am a complete lurker/poster and have never really met up with anyone on here. I would think we could easily get at least 4 of us together for a round somewhere and now would be the time to do it before overseeding.

and yes I have been getting a ton of rounds in lately but usually I am just a weekend warrior that plays every sat/sun because I recently broke up with the gf so it's been a complete golfathon/degenathon lately

and EC...ARIZONA>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>NC and I think you will agree once you stay here. You are moving here towards the end of our warm summers (116 today lol) but 7-8 months out of the year it's honestly fantastic here weather wise.

plus we have a million golf courses and they are constantly battling each other for customers the majority of the year so prices are good for the most part IMO

Thanks for the feedback. I've heard nothing but great things about golf in the area and I'm looking forward to experiencing it for myself. Golf out here in NC isn't awful, but this time of year all the courses have their prices jacked up to rape all the tourist that we see during the summer. I haven't been playing often enough(work 6 days a week and wife/kid duties) to warrant a membership anywhere. But I'll be unemployed for a while once I move so I'll definitely be looking to spend more time golfing.

For the past 7-8 years, me and a few friends have made an annual trip to either Myrtle Beach, SC or Pinehurst, NC. I always look forward to playing those courses for the first time and looks like I'll have a lot of chances for that in the Phoenix area.

Gonna be an adventure having to learn my distances all over again. I had just gotten my swing "back" too and gotten my yardages dialed in. Oh well. It'll make for a good time.

ball goes FAR out here in the desert FYI....

I'm playing Quintero and Vista Verde this weekend...I know Quintero will still be perfect and I'm hoping Vista is still juicy. Playing Vista Verde on Sunday for a prepaid deal of $13/player which is crazy good value. There's other rates that are 20 bucks or so and that's still an awesome deal for any of you that haven't been out there.

Confirmed, vista verde is still in good shape imo. $13/person is an absolute steal so get out there if you can. We played sunday at 11 AM (hot as hell obv) but never saw another person on the entire course and I think there was only 6-7 cars in the parking lot. Greens are a little faster than they look and roll true.

$13 is totally ridiculous for a course that good. I feel badly for them actually, but that's the state of the market.

Had a hit-and-giggle (aka scramble) Saturday at McCormick Ranch. Have always liked the layout but they tend to let it go to hell in the summer, although it wasn't as bad as I anticipated. The put us on both back nines for some reason and the greens on the Pine were actually pretty good. Palm had been punched a week before and were slow and uneven.

Not even sure why I'm mentioning this though...Vista Verde for $13 crushes McCormick Ranch at any price.

yeah we couldn't even believe that was a real offer on golf now...it was one of those prepaid deals but still awesome. I guess people are just afraid to drive out there but as we have mentioned it's really not that far if you live in scottsdale or north phoenix and that area is beautiful up there.

Agree on McCormick...I don't know if I have ever played there when I thought it was in good shape and nice...it's always one thing or another out there and it really does go to crap in the summer. That could be a fantastic course if a lot of money went into it and they keep it up better but it is what it is.

We are gearing up for annual flagstaff trip where we stay at his mother in laws house at forest highlands and play both courses there, probably go down to seven canyons one day and then a fun round at pinewood or if we really flop nuts maybe pine canyon or something. 5 day degen golf trips are about as good as it gets

taking august 24th off from work with 3 of my other buddies to probably get wild and play 36 holes at two different courses. Anyone have any good suggestions on some good conditioned $25-$35 dollar rounds.

We were thinking about heading out to check out Raven at Verrado. None of us have played there but have had heard good things.

We could follow it up with Golf Club at Estrella (Estrella Mountain Ranch), Wigwam Gold, Legacy or maybe even Whirlwind.

Other option is to play the Verde Open and head up to Tonto/Vista which we have played and know is nice.

Well if you're going to stay out on the WEST SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDE I would think that Estrella Mountain (the good one) or maybe Copper Canyon? It's on my Troon Pass but haven't been out there. Or Quintero, straight up the 303 to Lake Pleasant.

I like Verrado, but most the rounds I played were before they built houses. The back nine is particularly nice. Of course, it's all about the condition and since that entire area went broke a few years ago I have no idea how good they're keeping it.

Don't forget about Camelback mentioned above. Could parlay with TPC Champions, one of the most underrated courses in town.

Or both courses at We-Ko-Pa. They may be $40 or less in the summer.

still haven't decided on a place for next friday, basically just trying to play a couple different courses before everywhere is $60+

playing sunridge canyon saturday and quintero sunday afternoon this weekend. haven't played sunridge in a while but from what I can remember it's narrow and tough with the last 5-6 holes being pretty brutal. getting ready to hit a lot of 3 woods off the tee to keep it in the grass.

anyone played out there lately?

That's pretty much how I remember playing Sunridge couple years back. This summer hasn't been too bad I must say, and I was gone the last week so missed that heat!

Playing TPC stadium tomorow with the old man, and I am really excited, loved the course when I played it few months ago. (Not sure why all the hate).

Played TPC stadium yesterday for a good price, the course is really fun obv but its in crappy shape. A lot of the greens have really bad rough / dead patches and they are doing some construction work on a couple holes.

Played camelback padre for $22 this afternoon and its still perfect, greens slightly slower than a couple weeks ago but totally smooth and the rough is nasty punitive. With some wind it played hard from the tips.

Sunridge Canyon is like being kicked in the balls for five hours straight. Have fun with that.

To be fair, it's not a course I've ever played particularly well. It just wears me down. Some of the holes - 5, 8, 11, 15, 18 in particular - are really really tough. There are also holes which are clearly quite easy - 1, 7, 10, 12, 16 - but for some reason they don't cancel out the ballbusting pain of the rest of the course. Not for me at least. Not in a hurry to go back there.

Anyway, Troon Golf announced today that they just added the Boulders to their pass, which is a huge win for them as I consider it in the same class with the best courses in town including Troon North and We-Ko-Pa. Wasted no time in booking a round on Sunday morning ($49) as I haven't played there in nearly a decade.

Dumbass alert....

Go to TPC (good thing only 5 min away) and guy didn't have a teetime for us. Looks like I made it for yesterday lol.

Get a tee time at mccormick ranch. Was in horrible shape, greens were good though. Seemed like all my shots were off dirt. Played so bad too.

sunridge canyon was in pretty damn good shape and was fun for $20. the wind wasn't blowing hard so it was playable.

considering how brutally hung over I was the legit 74 that I shot felt like 67 out there. highlight of my round was puking in the 11th fairway and then chipping in for birdie and then birdied the next par 3.....

figures by the time I started feeling good on 17 I went ahead and doubled 18.

I agree with you though tuq that the course is pretty damn narrow and brutal. if you can hit it straight and just dink it around off the tee with irons/3 wood you can get into birdie chances but you def need to know the course.

I'm heading out to quintero again today which will feel WIDE open compared to Sunridge.

waiting to hear about boulders and see if it was a good time.

next friday we are probably playing superstition mountain/gold canyon for our 36 holes....anyone played out there recently? I have never played superstition mountain but have played gold canyon a few times

Superstition Mountain is really boring compared to Gold Canyon but at least back in the day (when they had money and were private) it was in absolutely incredible shape, even in the hottest parts of summer. Not a blade out of grass anywhere. Probably not the case now. Lost Gold >>> Prospector from a fun perspective, although it's also more difficult. More interesting layout by far.

Boulders was a good value at $49, mostly because the greens were super nice, albeit a bit slow. HOWEVER, they teed us off right behind a mini-shotgun which resulted in our first nine taking 2:45, which was brutal in the heat. At the turn we ranted a little bit and they turned us onto a different nine - they currently have only 27 holes open and rotate the closed nine, so although the front nine of the south was clearly playable and the flags were in, they weren't using it today. They also lied to us at the outset saying our tee time was five minutes later than it actually was, evidently in order to buy some time because of the bottleneck in front of us. Ultimately we teed off 20-25 minutes later than we were supposed to. The whole thing kinda sucked.

Chatted up the people we dropped in behind. They teed off 40 minutes after us, so didn't have nearly the holdup that we did. Free of being the caboose of that incredibly slow grouping we played the second nine in just over two hours. I also found out they booked off of golfnow, not sure if that is a new course to them as well but it will no doubt fill the tee sheet.

I already received an e-mail from the director of golf apologizing for the pace with a rather lengthy explanation that the shotgun group played the back tees, which was clearly a mistake, and to hope we would come back again. It was clearly a template but it was a nice gesture regardless.

sounds like a terrible situation out at the boulders for paying $50....can't stand waiting in the summer, such a bummer. You should request a free round to come back out or come back out for a cart fee. I have had similar situations in the past and one simple email to the Director of Golf and I got a severely reduced rate or free to come back out...you should definitely try it. Just be polite and explain what happened and how disappointed you were lalalalal

anyone play legacy or raven at south mountain lately?

Couldn't bring myself to ask for a freebie...that just seems too cliche - although no doubt a lot of people probably did.

Haven't played either Legacy or Raven in years, come to think of it. Used to play both with regularity.

legacy has always been super nice every time I have played it so I'm not worried about it. I really like that layout and it's a very comfortable course to play...kind of a no stress track.

Raven is nice when it's good shape but it's been real hit or miss for me the last couple of years. Might go to aguila instead lol....at least I know it's in good shape there!

Well, Raven SHOULD be in good shape since they've been pimping the hell out of it during this latest ad campaign*, I think the ads run a lot on the Golf Channel. One thing that amuses me is their claim that there are six thousand "cool pines". Uh, six thousand pine trees? I'm tempted to try to count them all in person or on google maps. That's ~300 pine trees per hole. Seriously doubtful.

* they also claim some sort of renovation or improvement which is almost certainly nonsense. Courses will add a teebox or a couple of bunkers, or switch nines, and call it a "renovation". Kind of like what Troon North did a couple of years ago.

Just curious, out here in northeastern NC and I believe in VA too, private coolers aren't allowed on the courses anymore. Is there any such law over there in AZ? I would assume out there either coolers are allowed or coolers are built on to the cart like some courses here.

They definitely don't allow them, but they won't stop you from bringing a drink on the course in a cup, nor will they search your bag. For years I smuggled an entire handle of Jack Daniel's in my bag because I refused to pay $6-7 per cocktail. Sometimes I'd smuggle mixer too, other times I would buy sodas from them.

I know guys who will stuff a whole bunch of beers in their bags or bring flasks out. Doesn't bother me at all because drink prices are ridiculous on most courses.

as tuq said exactly above....

I worked in golf services here at OrangeTree in scottsdale for 4-5 years in high school/college and this is the best advice I can give you:

A) either only stuff 4-5 beers in your bag so it's not a complete tank when you hand it over to a service guy. yes they will know its heavy then normal but it's not completely obvious

B) stuff the crap out of your bag and make sure you tip the bag guy immediately $5-$10 and most of the time it will never be an issue.

C) i assume I don't have to mention to have the beers in the bags and zipped up upon pulling up the bag drop or handing your bag over to the guy in the parking lot. don't be that guy that says he wait hold on while you stuff beers in your bag in front of an employee in which 9/10 times they will tell you that you can't bring those in.

got a 7:00 am on Friday at Legacy booked for $20/person foursome special...hell of a deal to play in the AM at that course imo...

we are going to get wild and play 36 holes since our one buddy is moving out of state for a few years. now trying to decide between raven, whirlwind (cat tail) or talking stick south which are all like $35/person.