bump for the official I HATE OVERSEEDING!!!!!

A lot of the courses getting scalped and soon to be seeded here in Phoenix/Scottsdale. Only good golf will be up north for at least a month or so. Then it will be cart path only for another 2 months....BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Well, at least some courses are open until early/mid October, but I agree with the general sentiment. It's not just the closure, the courses legit suck (AND are more expensive AND cart path only) and the condition isn't decent until nearly Thanksgiving.

I'm going up to Pinetop next week though for three days at White Mountain. That should be good if the weather holds up.

tuq, nice...I have a real nice golf vacation planned with my buddies that all still work at golf courses in the phoenix/scottsdale area.

My one buddy's mother in law has a huge cabin on the 14th tee of the meadow course at Forest Highlands in Flag so check this trip out.

Sat: Drive up to sedona to play seven canyons in the AM ($20 cart fee) then head up to buddy's house at Forest Highlands for fishing, drinking, poker, etc all afternoon

Sun: 11 AM tee times at Pinewood for a go low boozefest on that easy but fun little track in Munds Park ($10 cart fee LOL)

Mon: 11 AM tee times at Forest Highlands Canyon Course (free)

Tues: 11 Am tee times at Forest Highlands Meadow Course (free)

Pretty sick set up and a cheap awesome vacation. Grilling up, fishing, poker every night at a sweet cabin.

Probably the best four days of the year for all us.


Have fun in Pinetop...do u play white mountain CC up there?

Wow, that trip just destroys mine in terms of value and venue (well, except for Pinewood, heh).

Yeah, I am in a three day stag event at White Mountain CC, they close the course for the winter after we're done. It's a good course but it costs a lot more than cart fee, but we do have a nice place to stay for free.

incredible

I am going to be in Phoenix Sunday thru Wednesday speaking at the Golf Inc Conference. If there is anyone interested in playing either Wed afternoon or Thursday let me know.

I will take some pics of this trip, we do something similar every year and it's awesome. What's so funny is most of us have the most fun at pinewood because everyone shoots good because the course is so easy and there's so many birdies.

Obviously Forest Highlands is the gem of the group and conditions and atmosphere around there is amazing. The Canyon course holds all sorts of big time amatuer events but it would be so awesome to get a Nationwide tourney or some fun PGA tournament up there.

bonus pics of forest highlands

obv this weekend is supposed to rain up in Flag...40% chance, pretty rough.

we'll deal with it but could put a damper on playing all the nice courses

I'm facing the same issue. The rain doesn't concern me - rain happens - it's the accompanying delays due to lightning. The last time I was up at WMCC they had what our group felt was an unnecessary weather delay so we stayed out on the course and kept playing and actually passed several groups by the time they came back out. It was a bit chaotic to reintegrate ourselves but we were nowhere near the clubhouse at the time of the siren and thought they were being nits.

Since we're doing an AM/PM shotgun that is a notoriously slow event any significant weather delays could very seriously **** everything up.

so ****ty! I am in a little different spot where hopefully the courses aren't slammed full and we can just pull to the side and hang out under a few trees until it stops and go back out.

the nice part about the courses up north is that they handle rain A LOT better than the courses here in the valley and so they drain off real quick even after a good rain

we survived our 4 day trip up there and only got rain on Tuesday. Courses were in awesome shape for the most part.

Forest Highlands Meadow course is probably my new favorite course in the state. The Canyon course always gets higher ratings but I think it's a little gimmicky on a bunch of holes.

The meadow course is straight up in front of you and the greens were rolling 11.8 on the stimp and were probably the fastest greens I've ever seen.

I stumpled upon this thread this morning and brought me back in time a few years. I was a pgm grad at asu (2007). Havent been back since but man do i miss the golf. All my buddies had a job at some sick course and we would just rotate on where we would play that day. Desert forest, sun ridge canyon, raven at verado all for a cart fee at most.

Every winter I say I will go back for a week or 2 of golf, but am always too busy or lazy to do it. This year i really hope i do it. Still have some buddies who are head pros at some of the places you guys have mentioned in this thread. My old roommate is in charge at papago, so hopefully he can get us off at some of the tracks i havent played.

I cant wait to get back to the home track of Toka Sticks, to see if i still can go low..haha.

Read the whole thread, does anyone have updated comments / thoughts on Wildfire aka JW desert ridge? Am considering becoming a member of their club (appealing that they have 2 courses I can play and no cart fees). Other options I'm looking at if you have thoughts are Gainey Ranch, mcdowell mountain aka sanctuary, and pinnacle peak cc.

These are based on some combo of price and proximity to where I live in north scottsdale, thanks!

1. Wildfire, two fairly different courses by different designers. Really like them both, are fairly lengthy, and fair. Fun and a decent challenge.

2. Gainey Ranch. Just played it a couple of weeks ago and it was my home course in high school. In the winter it is in great shape and a lot of fun, in the summer they let the greens go a bit and the condition isn't nearly as good. Love the course and the head pro is a great guy, but it's a resort course so all three nines are pretty short and forgiving. The main defense are small, segmented and contoured greens but you should be hitting short irons in pretty much every hole which negates that difficulty to a large degree. Two really fun nines (Lakes and Arroyo) but the Dunes nine is very meh.

3. McDowell Mountain. A friend who works for golfswitch recently sent a bunch of players up there and they bitched about the new design, but that's all I have to go on so far. It was always a goofy, too tight course and there's only so much they could do with it because of limited land. Unless this is a substantially better price I'd avoid it.

4. Pinnacle Peak C.C. Really great course that has held up well over the years. Some of the better greens in town. If there is a complaint at all it's that the layout isn't terribly exciting but it was built at a time when expectations were lower.

thanks tuq!

From that and other research I think I'm not gonna bother further with mcdowell mountain. You sorta summed up my concern with gainey ranch, the course just looks short and too easy / resorty (not that I'm some great player, just that I like the challenge, don't want to feel good and then go play elsewhere with friends and be shocked). I do like that its 27 holes, my favorite amount to play in a day and more variety.

The two I'm most interested in are pinnacle peak and wildfire, and I realize they couldn't be more opposite. I think I'll have a chance to play both before I commit, and might get waitlisted at pinnacle anyway. In your experience is wildfire super busy / slow rounds because its the marriott resort course? That's my main concern there.

To be honest I haven't played Wildfire all that much in recent years since the resort, but I imagine like most courses filling the tee sheet is the priority, and the massive hotel helps them achieve that goal.

Pinnacle Peak on the other hand is private with a limited membership so I suspect you'll have a far easier time getting on unless they really pumped up the membership numbers. Which I doubt, when I was out there last year they were having a membership drive, but I think that's largely because their membership is old and dying and not getting much of a youth infusion and not because they've raised the numbers. Like all private country clubs out here it's a buyer's market.

Wildfire does give you 36 holes though...

The person I spoke to at pinnacle peak said they have had a lot of interest in their Junior level of membership, so much so that they have 15 spots open at the club but can't take any more Juniors according to their bylaws. So I'm on list there but playing the course tomorrow and checking things out so that should be fun at least.

Yeah I'm checking out Wildfire next week so I'll try to get a sense of how busy it is, the 2 courses is pretty appealing and no cart fees = I could easily play 36 on not busy days without being dead tired.

I play pinnacle peak cc every sunday for free as one of my good friends works there.

The greens and overall course conditions are EXCELLENT year round. The greens are almost better in the summer if you can believe that. I would like to hear your feedback on the course but I think it's a traditional and very fair course but our group always has a tough time going real low there. It seems like you get short sided in a bunker, bad lie in the rough or tree trouble and a double bogey is easy to come by.

Saying that, the greens are super fast right now. You have to focus on every putt or else you'll have 4-6 ft coming back.

I also played both courses in one day at wildfire (for free of course, good to know people in industry) a few weeks ago. The courses were both immaculate and fun to play.

What are the cost differences between the two places as that will likely be the determining factor.

Yeah, this is definitely a case where there is no clearly right answer if the prices and access are fairly similar. I hope he lets us know what he goes with.

Thanks for adding your thought durango! Maybe we can meet up sometime and play as I'm settled here now and trying to get into a good routine of golf + poker at CAZ. I played pinnacle peak today with a super nice member (low single digit solid player too) guiding me around, I totally agree with your general thoughts, it seems like the course should be kinda easy but I found myself in crappy positions all over the place, and then the fast and subtle greens ate me up. I played the whole course on one ball and shot a miserable 90 (blues).

The only negative I could really say about the course is that its not very imaginative (was noted earlier in thread by tuq), and the par 3s are kinda repetitive (I hit 5i, 7i, 7i, 5i on the four par 3s with nearly no wind today). I will play wildfire next week and compare, the prices are similar, I think the biggest difference will be the amenities at wildfire are very nice (its a super nice resort so not a surprise), but the course will be crowded and public, whereas pinnacle peak is quiet and small, and a real solid course.

Also I should add that I didn't know what they would charge me but the round was totally free and they bought me and my wife lunch after as well, that was a real pleasant treat.

good review of pinnacle peak..it's mostly an older crowd but it's definitely quiet and the rounds never take more than 4 hours even when the course is busy.

I told you the fast greens would eat you up whenever you miss a green or even if you hit the green! The good part about that place is once you get a good feel of where you want to miss and the best spots to approach flags you can make a lot of birdies.

interested to see how you like wildfire...I would ask to play both courses as they are totally different.

btw I might be able to meet up for a round but I'm pretty busy. I have a regular office job here in scottsdale so I work M-F, hang out with the GF on saturdays usually and then sunday I have a normal foursome every week that we play pinnacle peak with my buddy who works there.

I also have hook ups at kierland, wildfire, biltmore and orangetree...aka a lot of my high school friends never grew up and got real jobs = free golf for me

played OrangeTree on Sunday to switch it up.

I used to work here and the course is way better than 2-3 years ago. The whole property was recently sold and new owners/staff have done a good job getting the course back to good condition.

They upgraded their mowers apparently and seems to have made a big difference on the greens as they are much smoother than in the past.

Overall I would say it's definitely worth a play if the price is right. Obviously gets super busy on the weekends but we teed off at 1:45 and fnished all 18. Shot 74 with a couple of doubles on the way in after a few too many drinks.

would love to start having some other people give mini course reviews on condition, value, experience at some of the other courses are here.

typically in the summer my best value courses that I try to play often are The Legacy, Triology at Vistancia and Aguilia.

Anyone have some recent "trip" reports from local courses?

Not a local, but had a house on #10 at Vistanica when course was still new.
How is it these days? Have they made any major changes?
Also, they were putting in a private course out passed it, Black "something" when we sold, has anyone played this course?
Hopefully be making it out there more often now that primary residence is in San Diego. Even with the market crash the wife and I are now regretting selling our place out there.