Golf road trip planner
The can’t-miss property is Sand Hollow Resort and its 27 holes, including the visually-stunning Championship Course, designed by former U.S. The longest leg of the trip is a journey to a unique and emerging golf destination in the southwest corner of Utah, where a sandbelt of red silica has given rise to a growing collection of value-priced courses. And being able to play 36 holes at both We-Ko-Pa and Troon North is a nice option.įrom here, we’ll head north toward Utah, with a requisite detour along the way for a stop at the Grand Canyon for photos and an inevitable debate about how long it would take a golf ball to reach the bottom after a good drive from the rim. These immaculate courses deliver the pure desert experience. Just up the road is Troon North Golf Club and its two 18-hole courses-Monument and Pinnacle-that weave across the rugged desert landscape through natural ravines and foothills in the shadows of Pinnacle Peak. We-Ko-Pa – Cholla Course (Photo credit: Lonna Tucker) Both lie on Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation Land and feature dramatic views of the surrounding mountains. Located in the Sonoran Desert about 20 minutes outside downtown Phoenix, We-Ko-Pa features two very different courses: The Cholla course, a quintessential target style desert design, and the more traditional Saguaro course from the team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw. While I’ve been to the Waste Management Phoenix Open and witnessed the largest crowds for any golf event in the world, getting a chance to actually tee it up on holes like the par-3 16 thhole-which for one week a year transforms into one of the most electric settings in the game-is a completely different ballgame. TPC Scottsdale – Stadium CourseĪfter arriving at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and trekking to the frustratingly-distant offsite rental car center, our first stop for golf is the site of perhaps the wildest event on the PGA Tour schedule: TPC Scottsdale and its Stadium Course.
What follows is my (perhaps ambitious) plan, one that entails a rental car, a wealth of incredible public golf in Arizona, Utah, and Nevada, and a bit of sightseeing along the way. and led to my next step-mapping out a week-long, multi-state golf road trip with a buddy. Naturally, that’s created an even greater awareness of the terrific golf options in the southwest U.S. The latest relocation prompted me to make several visits to Arizona with golf clubs in tow, eager to experience what for me was another largely untapped market.
More recently, they bought a new home in the Southwest, on the outer fringes of the ever-expanding Phoenix/Scottsdale area. 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.