While the PGA Tour only uses the TPC of Scottsdale for one week, the Stadium course maintains top-notch playing conditions for most of the year.
The superb condition, along with the 27 Tour pros who call the course home, its elite practice facilities (that also houses the Nicklaus / Flick Game Improvement clinics) and the warm winter weather help bring the top golfers out to the desert each year.Trouble comes in the form of 72 bunkers that are deep and strategically placed in the fairways and around the greens, which are rather large but feature many tricky twists and turns and run fast. Desert vegetation- such as saguaro cacti, mesquite and Palo Verde trees – are scattered about the course and water comes into play on six of the holes, including three of the last four.This closing stretch is what really makes this course fun – for golfers or spectators. Eagles and birdies are possible down the stretch but bogeys and doubles are more common.

Course Highlights
18 holes
Challenging
All year round desert weather conditions

Kierland Golf Club provides three 18-hole combinations. Named after indigenous plant life found on the course, Acacia, Ironwood and Mesquite offer three championship-style nines – each with its own flavor and strategy.Emerald green fairways are etched into golden-colored desert grasses, sweeping over constantly changing elevations to flawless greens. More than three hundred bunkers guard the way, along with lakes, dry desert washes and strands of desert trees. The signature TifEagle greens offer up subtle contours that challenge even the best players.Kierland Golf Club designer Scott Miller, formerly a senior designer for Jack Nicklaus, designed many of the America’s finest courses including Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course in Idaho and We-Ko-Pa Golf Club in Scottsdale among many others.

Course Highlights
Westin hotel on site
3 x 18 hole combinations
Westin Kierland Resort Acacia 9

The Tom Fazio-designed Raptor course offers a thrilling challenge that commands a player’s respect through a daring, high-stakes game of risk and reward.Stretching 7,135 yards from the back tees, the par-72 course unfolds over the gentle hills and across shaded natural washes typical of this picturesque corner of the Sonoran Desert. Raptor offers players panoramic views of Scottsdale’s rugged McDowell Mountains and surrounds them with towering Saguaros, Palo Verde, Ironwood and Mesquite trees that were preserved in creating the golf course.Typically, Raptor’s fairways are generous, however, strategically placed fairway bunkers can quickly transform an offline drive into a scramble. The greens tend to be large, with a fair amount of undulation. Wayward approaches are duly penalized as most of the greens are perched above deep bunkers and grass collection areas. Fazio utilized water sparingly, but where it does come into play, he created intriguing hazards that add drama as well as aesthetic value to the golf course.

Course Highlights
Tom Fazio-designed
par 72 desert course

Designed by former U.S. Open and PGA Champion David Graham and golf course architect Gary Panks, Grayhawk’s Talon Course is one of the most exciting and dramatic tests of golf in the Southwest.Located in North Scottsdale, the 6,973-yard Talon course is one of the highest rated daily-fee golf courses in Arizona, and is included on Golf Magazine’s prestigious list of the “Top 100 You Can Play in the U.S.” The course also has hosted numerous high-profile golf events including the semi-finals and finals of the Andersen Consulting World Championship of Golf; pro ams for the Waste Management Phoenix Open; the Heather Farr Trophy Matches and the Tostito’s Fiesta Bowl Golf Classic.The Talon Course provides breathtaking views of the nearby McDowell Mountains as well as the Phoenix/Scottsdale skyline. And uniquely, Talon’s back nine was built around a series of deep box canyons with a handful of holes skirting steep drop-offs and thick stands of Mesquite, Palo Verde and Ironwood trees.

Course Highlights
exciting and dramatic tests of golf
beautiful mountain views

The Cholla Course at We-Ko-Pa is dramatic to say the least as it plays across desert washes and atop ridges flowing seamlessly into greens tucked into hillsides and desert arroyos. Cholla is one of the most pristine desert golf experiences in the Southwest. Threading through an open expanse overlooking the Verde and Salt River Valleys, Red Mountain, and the Superstition Mountains, Cholla preserves the essence and purity of desert-style golf. In fact, you will often hear as much talk of the setting and sensational views as you will about the incredible golf course at hand.Open since December 2001, the Cholla Course at We-Ko-Pa has garnered countless honors and has quickly become recognized as the reference course for quintessential desert golf. Designed by Scott Miller, this 7,225 yard layout was named by Sports Illustrated as one of the 10 best new public courses in the world shortly after its debut. Since then, Zagat Survey 2007-2008 gives Cholla its highest rating among all Arizona courses and Golfweek ranks the layout #4 on its 2013 list of the state’s best public courses.
Whether you play the Cholla Course or the Saguaro Course, at We-Ko-Pa you’re in for an award-winning desert golf experience unlike any other in Arizona.

Course Highlights
Challenging 7,225 yards from the tips
75 bunkers over hole course

The Saguaro course at We-Ko-Pa Golf Club is one of the newer golf courses in Scottsdale’s golf resort corridor, having opened at the beginning of 2006. A Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw design, it’s not a golf course where you can swing hesitantly: You need to be sure of your golf shots, and commit to them. Fairways and greens are maintained in excellent condition, and it’s a walker’s dream of a golf course.

Course Highlights
A walking course
Excellent condition