Take a Scottsdale Golf Vacation

Lee Trevino, well known for his quips and sayings, once said of desert golf, “It’s like a voyage into the unknown”. The first desert course, Desert Highlands, was designed and built by Jack Nicklaus and Scott Miller in the mid 1980’s, and it was home to the first “skins game”. It also was the beginning of the building boom of golf courses in Arizona.
Taking advantage of the desert terrain, approximately 350 new golf courses have been built since that time.

Most golfers are looking to play a different kind of golf course when they plan their trip to Scottsdale, enough already of the traditional courses that they play every weekend back home…and desert courses fill the bill. The game is the same, whether it’s on a tree-lined fairway or meandering along a desert fairway. The maximum allowance for turf is 90 acres, so there’ll be a lot of desert around you…plus arroyos (dry washes – hopefully), critter warnings (maybe rattlesnakes, possible roadrunners), the jumping chollas (they will reach out and grab you, just brush against one and you’ll have enough cactus spines on you to last the day) and of course the giant Saguaros that will gobble up your ball if it goes that way. Didn’t we tell you it would be an adventure?

Scottsdale and its desert courses are a “must-play” for a great golf vacation. We-Ko-Pa, built by Native Americans over in Fountain Hills is probably the most scenic course you can play anywhere. Four Peaks Mountain (their sacred mountain) is visible from most areas of the course, and the greens are set in box canyons, this course is beautiful and a public golf course to boot. The Boulders of course is set among 1,000,000 year old rocks to give you pause. The Raven Golf Club at Verrado uses natural desert terrain and plays in and around the washes. The White Tank Mountains make a powerful backdrop.
And for a real sleeper try the newly revamped Legend Trails, it’s a “strategic course” as described by it’s designer Rees Jones. You’ll be lulled by the first few holes, thinking, “yeh, this course is duck soup”, with minimal desert carries, but whoa, then comes hole #7, a par 5, with water, then on the back nine you’ll get all you can handle with the desert stretching before you. Legend Trails is reasonable with outstanding views, maybe a great place to start your Scottsdale Golf Vacation. Get all the information you need, as well as great rates for a golf vacation package at http://Insider-Scottsdale.com