Last night I was talking with a friend of mine who is a pro at Papago Municipal in Phoenix. Once one of the highest ranked munis in the country, it has suffered from lack of love for the last 15-20 years, although the last couple have been better. A bid was won last year and bulldozers started bulldozing on April 1st. Locals will only pay a couple bucks more, it appears the bulk of the rate hike will be for visitors.

From memory, here is a synopsis of hole-by-hole improvements.

Yardage: from ~7050 to ~7450
Par: from 72 to 71, the lone change turning the 10th into a par 4 (yikes)

Hole-by-hole projected changes:

1: The big change here, perhaps the most dramatic on the course, is to move the green ~50 yards back and to the right, bringing the water in front of the 11th totally into play. Reeds and other undergrowth that existed to the right of the first green have already been removed in anticipation of this move. No brainer. The new hole will play more like 590 from the tips instead of 540.

2: Remarkably, they seem to have found a lot of yardage on this hole by moving the tees back - something I thought not possible because of the 6th and 12th tees. I guess not. This formerly 370 yard easy hole will now play at least 410.

3: Generally considered the hardest hole on the course, this may go from 470 to 490 or longer as the green is moved back and to the right.

4: The tees are supposed to move back and to the right, making this 210 yard hole into at least 230, maybe 240.

5: Perhaps the hole changed the least by the remodel, no big plans here.

6: The teebox will be moved back to where the current 12th hole starts and the hole lengthened to something like 440.

7: Even I saw this one coming. There was ample room to pull the teebox WAY back. The problem I saw being people being able to reach the dogleg. I guess the course doesn't see that problem. This hole used to play a bit over 400. It will now be around 460.

8: There was plenty of room here too, but I'm surprised they took it. Long par-3s are boring to me, but the word is they're going to stretch it to 250.

9: Another dramatic change occurs here. The tee complex which previously existed will be recreated near where 17 currently is. The 510 yard par-5 will end up being more like 560. The pond which used to cut into the 9th fairway will be filled in early but expanded late, bringing the water into play around the green quite a bit more.

10: Converted par-4, 500 yards. One can only hope they widen the fairway landing area because that's the primary reason it was such a difficult hole to begin with.

11: The first of three holes to be shortened, this will now play not longer than 165 yards or so. The huge sand trap fronting the green will be eliminated and the area between the green and water shaved.

12: Another shortened hole, to accommodate the stretching of #6. No need for this hole to be longer anyway. May be driveable.

13: It was hinted that this hole will be longer.

14: Tees are slated to be moved 40-50 yards back on this hole, making it a 440 yard hole or so, much more of a challenge.

15. Hard to make this one longer, but the word is that the tees will be moved back to the right a bit, somewhat changing the angle of the drive.

16. Incredibly, this hole is set to lengthen. It's already almost 460 uphill, but the tees are supposed to go back and the green to move over near where the 9th tees used to be.

17. This is the third and final hole to be shortened. The weird thing about this hole has always been that it's a blind shot. On the plus side, there is no danger short of the green. Now they're talking about a hole of around 190 yards with the teebox up on the hill so people can see the target. Sounds great.

18: If anything changes here it will be to move the tee back. I would endorse that given all the changes but it is still a tough hole. Par was never easy nor should it be in the future.

This will hopefully be of some interest to people that have played this course over the years. I am certainly looking forward to playing it when it's done. I can post screenshots if necessary.

Screenshots would be awesome, I'm very interested to see how this pans out.

Only played it once, don't really remember that much. Guess I wasn't that impressed? Sounds good though, looking forward to you telling us about your 68 tuq!

I grew up playing golf in and around the Phoenix area first in JGAA and high school stuff then in AGA events. I always looked forward to events held at Papago because I really enjoyed the layout, and those were the only times they could manage to get it into anything close to playable conditions. Perhaps I'm spoiled or just ran a bit bad with the timing of my casual rounds there, but it always seemed that the greens were horrible and the conditioning of the fairways/rough was mediocre at best. Hopefully once this much money is dumped into reshaping they can find a superintendent capable of keeping it in decent shape.

This is just a cap of the future location of the first green and where the second tee is moving. I cropped it too far or I could have pointed out the differences on 11, 12, and 6 since they're right there too. Remember that the area behind the first green was basically unused except for an alternate tee on the 2nd which was rarely put into play and really didn't add much to the hole except to make it a slightly sharper dogleg.



EDIT: here is a close-up of the area, and shows the changes better. Note the sand trap in front of 11 that has been highlighted is gonzo, which is fine, because I don't think I ever hit it in the water as long as it was there, there was too much of a buffer to hit it that short.

OK, here are a couple more:

7/9/16/17. The tee on 7 comes way back into the waste area. The green on 16 shifts left. Not really sure why other than to avoid killing people via snap hooks from the new 7th tee. The 9th tee comes back and left and overlays the current 17th tee, and the new 17th tee will be up on a hill, thus making the green visible for the first time. It will also be quite a bit shorter.



And here is 14/16. Tees come back. I put a yellow circle around the huge, now dead tree to the right of the 16th fairway that anyone who has played this course knows is evil. Before it was killed - and we're all sure it was poisoned given its current state and the fact that the other trees are getting along fine - it would gobble up anyone who tried to hit a draw. If you hit the ball long you basically had to cut it to avoid hitting it through the fairway straight ahead. It's still there, and a dead branch or two still looms but it's not as formidable as it used to be. Plus they recently planted and staked a little tree behind it. I've never felt badly for a tree until that one, since it's destined to also be poisoned before it gets too big.

tuq nice work

I was wondering the exact changes that were going to be made.

I've played Papago over 100 times and consider one of my favorite courses and the best in Phoenix besides Desert Forest.

It seems like some changes are being made just for the sake of being made.

The ones I like:

1: Was a great hole, will be even better. Risk/reward is much more in play now for the long hitters. Kinda worried the (flat) layup area will be too far back (120 yards?)

2 yards were all it needed.

4 I like them making that a 3-wood. The green is perfect for a long par 3

6 Didn't like being able to carry the bunker. 20 yards is perfect.

7. God I want to play this hole right now. Seems to me most drives will end in the valley with what about 180 left. And the shot will be half blind(I think), with the ball above your feet to THAT green. It will give people nightmares. Strangely its starting to sound like #3

11. perfect change

12. Shorter is good especially if they keep the dropoff down to the desert on the left side

13. Needed yards

14. needed yards

15. Glad they're not changing it

16. Should be interesting to see the new green. The didn't really like the old one for some reason

Ones I dislike:

3. Are they kidding? Everyone was failing to hit good shots from 160-190 with the ball above their feet, so lets see if they can do it from 190-220

8. Stupid

17. Of course we can no longer have a blind tee shot on a par-3. How can the morons see if they made a Hole-in-one or not? At 190 with a view it will be defenseless, or if they change the green it will just be another gay par 3 that every course has 2 of. If they really are changing this its almost enough to cancel out the good from most of the other holes. Absolutely hate it.


Ok changes:

10: will be a beast. If they didn't F with 3 I'd like it.

9: I used to know an old pro who was a pro at Papago back in the 70s. he said that this was the hardest hole relative to par back when it hosted the US AM PubLinx (BTW the winning score was 16 over for 4 rounds when it used to be stroke play, which shows you if they grow the rough and shave the greens what it could be like). I made 5 guesses before he told me, would have been close to my last guess. It had the old tee box back then and I always wanted to try it out. Looks like I'll get the chance. I always liked the old #9 though

Reopened today to the public. I'm playing it next weekend but decided to go out and have a look and get a scorecard. Some random observations from what I could see from the clubhouse area and speaking with staff:

- the driving range is NICE, it looks like they actually overseeded the entire thing and lengthened it. Now they have fixed colored poles out there which I'm sure will coordinate with plaques on the tee. Unfortunately it's also fenced off, probably because of construction to the adjacent teaching facility.

- you wouldn't even recognize the area around the clubhouse, it's like a totally different place. For one they tore the old POS clubhouse down after they determined it wasn't worth salvaging. In it's place is a trailer and it looks like they laid sod in the rest of the area. That, accompanied with the fact that there are a LOT of trees that were removed or fell over throughout the course during the monsoons gives everything a much more open feel. From the first tee it almost felt like a links style course in comparison.

- I was evidently given some bad intel about greens moving but it appears most of what I was told about changing the length of holes ended up being correct.

- the two greens I could see (9 and 18) had much, much more subtle contours than they used to. I like this a lot. There were too many greens where you'd have roller-coaster types of putts.

- the lake on 9 has been moved up adjacent to the green as expected and it's actually beautiful. There are no trees around it anymore and the ghetto-ass swampy crap that used to be in and around it is all gone, as is I'm told the case on #1.

- the tee complexes are very nice - rectangular and each tee set appears to have its own. Part of the rebuilding of these involved sodding the areas around them to shore them up from future erosion. There are distance plaques on the tees now too. When we play next week we'll probably just play from those, not wherever the actual marker is. Also, there are now five sets of tees, which was a nice change (I would have been fine with just four), in addition to 7333 there is 6771 and 6382 for the men.

- #10 is still a par-5, so I was wrong about that. They probably changed their minds because it would have required shortening it a bit.

Finally, here are the distances now, with the change from the previous card in parenthesis. Make note of what they did to the par-3s #4, #8, and #17:

1. 552 (+9)
2. 386 (+18)
3. 467 (+9)
4. 233 (+18)
5. 383 (-7)
6. 442 (+22)
7. 454 (+37)
8. 253 (+55)
9. 542 (+25)
Out: 3721 (+186)

10. 525 (+5)
11. 187 (0)
12. 322 (-31)
13. 402 (-6)
14. 442 (+46)
15. 585 (+30)
16. 442 (-2)
17. 243 (+16)
18. 464 (+21)
In: 3612 (+79)
Total: 7333 (+245)

If I remember more I will post, but I'll probably just circle back next weekend after we play.

OK, bumping my thread again. I played yesterday. The weather was pretty awful, which was evident in the fact that we were the last group on the course when we finished and it wasn't even sunset yet (there were plenty of groups behind us all day).

The first green and a couple of others were really sandy and slow which was a disappointment. We were afraid they were all going to be like that but it got better. I kept blowing all my putts past the hole because I couldn't mentally re-calibrate the speed from the first hole onward. The greens are contoured similarly to their previous shape but the breaks are quite a bit more subtle now.

We had a 16-man event and all of us are used to playing high-end daily fee courses. There was some grumbling in my group but most of the guys - who are hard to please and used to courses being in shape - gave it rave reviews, including myself. One concern is that there was a TON of sand in the sand traps, maybe that's necessary for now but we had a bunch of plugged lies.

Here is a quick hole-by-hole rundown:

1. This was the only green that was moved, a ways back and to the right, and right on the pond. There are no longer any trees around this pond and they grassed in the entire area around it, including the area between the 10th green and the pond. This is a really excellent starting hole. There is a large bunker on the left side of the green.

2. Not much change here, just a little longer.

3. Also a few yards longer, it was always the longest par-4 on the course and it didn't get any easier. I hit a solid drive and still had a 4-iron in, which came up short.

4. Quite a bit longer, brutal par-3.

5. This hole is mostly unchanged, but they added a bunker at the elbow of the dogleg on the left-hand side that from the back tees could be a menace for those hitting driver.

6. Quite a bit longer too, the bunker that could be flown on the left is not really reachable from the tips anymore.

7. This is an absolute beast at >450 yards. It was all I could do to get it to the dogleg and have a clear shot.

8. Monstrous at >250 yards. It was playing somewhat into the wind and the other three in my group hit their driver.

9. It's excellent what they did to this hole, moving the tees back and to the left. It's no longer a dogleg hole, it's dead straight and lined with bunkers on both sides. Also, the water comes up near the green and a misguided decision to try to get as close to the green as possible on my second shot left me wet. Also, like the lake around 1 & 11 they grassed in the area between the lake and the 10th hole, so it looks very nice.

10. Not much changed here, just fewer trees. This was my lone birdie.

11. With the pointless sand trap in front of the green gone, this is a very scenic hole. We had a back flag though so the water wasn't much of a factor. Like the first hole, the green sits quite a ways above the water which creates a bit of a dramatic effect.

12. Much shorter, I hit a 4-iron and had ~80 yards in. They also added a couple of bunkers up the left-hand side at about driver distance. They probably help more than they hurt, put there to catch balls from rolling down the slope behind them.

13. Added a bunker that I nearly drove into at the left elbow of the dogleg.

14. This hole is way longer now and it shows - I used to just hit an iron and then have a wedge in. Yesterday I ripped a drive and still had an 8-iron.

15. This hole typically plays into the wind, and at 585 the days when the wind was down and I could rip two shots and sometimes get home are over. My third shot into this hole after a good drive and mediocre second was an 8-iron. The bunker down the left side of this fairway can't even be sniffed from the new tee.

16. Cleared out a ton of trees down the right, which is helpful for people like me who hit a draw off the tee. There are now two bunkers up the right-hand side that are a menace.

17. They may have shaved the hill down or maybe relocating the tee was the key but for the first time the green is visible from the tee. There are several bunkers surrounding this green.

18. This hole was always a great finishing hole, now it's even longer. It's hard to get to the elbow with the drive (and past the tree line), I was but a couple of others weren't.

In general I think they did a great job, and hope the bad greens get good soon. I look forward to playing it again.

How much were the green fees this time of year?

I played on monday and liked all the changes. I played in the afternoon in the drizzle and cold and man did it play long.

1 is awesome. 7 is amazing with the back tee like I thought it would, hit driver and 3iron from the uphill sidehill lie to the back of the green and 2 putted for par.

9 has a much smaller green (the biggest change to a green by far)

11 removing the bunker makes all the difference.

bunker on 13 fairway improves hole immensely

length on 14 is good

17 as i said before i don't really like removing the half blind shot. The par3s are just beasts. without much wind, although it was cold and wet I had to hit driver on 17, hit my best one of the day and ended up on the green 20 feet from the back edge. Hit 3woods on 4 and 8.

I feel like they took out too many trees, but maybe that's for future spectator site lines. Definitely love the changes overall, especially the distance

Hmmm, I think the absolute most you pay all year to walk is $45 if you are a local. I had a complicated situation because I was riding a cart, paying the twilight rate, and renewing my Phoenix Golf card ($30). All told it came out to somewhere in the $70s because he was nice enough to waive my cart fee.

MUD, thanks for the analysis and insight.

Random bump, I found out over the weekend that the chicks' LPGA event next month will be played at Papago. No doubt that has everything to do with Safeway abandoning sponsorship - my guess is it would still be at Superstition Mountain if that hadn't happened. That said, it's plenty of course for the women and probably a better test of golf than Superstition Mountain at the same distance.

Played Papago again yesterday. Fifth time since the reopening. Also the first time I broke 80 - started off +4 after three holes but had three birdies on the back including on 18 to shoot a 79. It also offset dropping one in the drink on 11 and getting a double, unthinkable before removing the sand trap, but the greens are dormant and firm and you need to play about a club less and roll it up. That makes eleven a much more interesting hole. They also had pins tucked for a men's club event and we actually got pin sheets so shooting a good score was a bit more mentionable.

Sounds like Papago is now a beast. Moved away from Phoenix about 5 years ago and probably played there 100 times. I appreciate all the insight from the course changes. It's hard for me to imagine seeing the 17th green from the tee box.

It'll be interesting to see how that works with no on-site facilities...

tents and port-a-potties?

The more I play the course, the more I am in love with the changes. Probably the two most startling are the 1st and 11th greens sitting next to each other well above the cleaned up water hazard, and the 9th playing as a dead straight par-5 with bunkers up both sides. The view from the tee is just awesome. I also want to add that the added bunkers caught some victims in our group yesterday: the fairway bunker on five led our long hitter to a double bogey, the cross bunker on the ninth about 70 yards was the undoing of someone else, as was one of the left bunkers on the twelfth. Someone almost dumped it into the new one on #18 about sixty yards short of the green, that would have been death.

Not sure how they will handle the tournament. On the plus side it will probably have a lot higher attendance than when it was was out at Superstition Mountain. One thought I heard yesterday that makes perfect sense is to have people park by Phoenix Municipal Stadium - where the As play spring training - and bus them up from there. This is a no-brainer except for the fact that the As will also be playing some of if not all of those days there. It is right around the corner though - the lot is visible from the 5th and 13th tees and was half full yesterday for some reason we couldn't figure out.

Bump for the LPGA playing their Phoenix stop at Papago next week. I assume it's primarily the result of Safeway pulling out, but it's a good move spectator-wise. Instead of being way the eff out at Superstition Mountain, it will be right in the heart of the city. I plan to go out and see how they play this course, having played it several times myself.

Having just posted in the BBV thread about playing there yesterday, I can say that the problem greens (1, 2, and 12) are MUCH improved and that in the last week or so they cut down even more trees, huge ones, presumably related to next week's event. Not sure I agree with some of them - they were very old trees and clearly impacted a lot of shots - but evidently there was a reason for it, whatever it is.

I was also told there is a plan to plant native bushes - cholla trees, etc. - in the currently barren areas, e.g. between #1 and #10.