Best Public Golf Options of Scottsdale

In my mind, when it comes to a winter golf oasis, there is nothing finer than Scottsdale. Home to the Waste Management Phoenix Open, the Scottsdale area boasts more than 200 golf courses, many of which are accessible to the public. Each year when the PGA Tour converges on TPC Scottsdale for the “Greatest Show […]
Links Living: The Country Club at DC Ranch

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]This former cattle ranch in the Valley of the Sun is proving country clubs can flourish by offering amenities, programming, and service that appeal to all generations Opened in the late 1990s on a knoll near the McDowell Mountains, The Country Club at DC Ranch, in Scottsdale, Ariz., sits on land that a century ago […]
American Dream Courses: Southwest

After exploring the southeast, we stay at a similar latitude but move across the country to the southwest for the second installment of our “American Dream” series—specifically California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and southern Utah. The southwest isn’t blessed with quite as much golf as the southeast perhaps, and there are comparatively few old-school golf […]
The Best Courses of MLB Spring Training

The crack of the bat, the pop of the mitt—ah, the sweet sounds of Spring Training. Major League Baseball teams take to the warm oases of the Sunshine State and the Grand Canyon State each spring in preparation for the upcoming season, giving fans the perfect opportunity to see the multiple teams in action every […]
Classic Course: Renegade at Desert Mountain
By James A. Frank In 1987, when Jack Nicklaus opened the Renegade course at Desert Mountain—the first of six he’d eventually build at the luxury community in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert— it truly broke new ground. For along with typical Nicklaus features like mounding-lined fairways and a high degree of difficulty, every hole at Renegade […]
Premier Properties: Desert Mountain Club & Community

Scottsdale, Ariz. There’s change in the air at Desert Mountain, where an increase in new members and real estate sales is showing a definite youth movement. Last year, Desert Mountain surpassed its all-time record for custom-home sales, nearing $200 million year-to-date. In the past six months, the community has welcomed 90 new members, with 85 […]
Links Living: Mirabel

There is no shortage of supersized private golf communities in the Sun Belt. Some boast membership in the thousands, clubhouses topping 100,000 square feet, and enough courses that members can play a different one every day of the week. Not so with Mirabel, located in Scottsdale, Ariz. But what this club lacks in size it […]
A Weekend at Troon North in Scottsdale, Arizona
By Graylyn Loomis One of the benefits of being a golf writer is traveling to popular golf destinations around the country. With that travel comes frequent questions from golfers about where they should go next. Until recently, I had a large hole in my resume. I had never played golf in Arizona and had to […]
Top 10 Courses: Arizona

1. Estancia, ScottsdaleTom Fazio’s 1995 Scottsdale debut remains the Arizona gold standard. Generous fairways and greens and relatively few forced carries make for a less penal assignment than at most desert courses and this ultra-exclusive layout is always in top condition. 2. Forest Highlands (Canyon), Flagstaff Set in the mountains at 7,000 feet, this is […]
A Dream Southwest U.S. Golf Road Trip

When my parents moved from the East Coast to the Monterey Peninsula several decades ago, it opened up a new golf frontier for me, spurring several golf trips in and around 17-Mile Drive and the Carmel Valley. More recently, they bought a new home in the Southwest, on the outer fringes of the ever-expanding Phoenix/Scottsdale […]