Tag: 2023 WM Phoenix Open

The Super Bowl, the WM Phoenix Open and you: Check out the top 10 public-access courses near Phoenix-Scottsdale

The Valley of the Sun offers plenty of great public-access golf courses.

Headed to the Phoenix/Scottsdale area for the annual giant party that is the WM Phoenix Open on the PGA Tour? Maybe you scored a ticket to watch the Eagles square off against the Chiefs in Super Bowl 57 at State Farm Stadium in nearby Glendale? Perhaps you’re one of the truly lucky ones planning to attend both?

Then pack your golf clubs because the Valley of the Sun offers plenty of great public-access golf courses. For most of the year, we recommend you start with these top 10 in the area. Of course, only nine are really options for the week of the Super Bowl and WM Phoenix Open, as TPC Scottsdale’s Stadium Course is booked to host the pros, but you get the idea.

Golfweek’s Best ranks courses around the world, utilizing a pool of more than 800 course raters. The most popular rankings list in the program is the Best Courses You Can Play list for public-access layouts in each state. To analyze the top 10 public-access courses around the Phoenix and Scottsdale area, we started with those rankings for all of Arizona. Then we included only those courses within a 90-minute drive of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, which sits about halfway between TPC Scottsdale and State Farm Stadium.

But don’t consider these your only options. Check out even more great courses in Arizona on the state-by-state public-access list. But be ready to pay a premium for a tee time the week of the Super Bowl and PGA Tour event, as many courses in the valley utilize fluctuating on-demand pricing all year, and all the courses will see a spike in demand on what will be the busiest week of the year.

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Arizona hosting WM Phoenix Open, Super Bowl for the fourth time. Count Jordan Spieth among those looking to do both

Golf in Scottsdale, then football in Glendale, about 30 miles away.

Sports worlds will collide on Sunday, Feb. 12, 2023, when the final round of the WM Phoenix Open concludes less than an hour before kickoff to Super Bowl 57.

Golf in Scottsdale, then football in Glendale, about 30 miles away.

That doesn’t give much time for anyone at TPC Scottsdale to make it across town, but there will be plenty of fans – and probably quite a few pro golfers – who will give it a go.

So what about tickets? Surely Pat Williams, the 2023 WM Phoenix Open tournament director, is getting bombarded with Super Bowl ticket requests from players.

“It’s interesting. It’s felt like this year it’s the reverse,” he said. “All these players want to be playing on Sunday and hopefully in the final group. … the last putt will drop 30 minutes before the kickoff and I think these players want to plan to be playing on Sunday. So we actually haven’t had a lot of player requests for Super Bowl tickets.

“What we have had is a lot of people, whether it’s the NFL themselves or executives, you know, corporate companies coming out for the Super Bowl that have requested to be here [at the Open].

“Interestingly, the Eagles were one of those teams that requested tickets and maybe they knew something long before everybody else about how good their football team was going to be because they’re going to have people out here on Saturday at the tournament.”

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In 2015, the last time the Phoenix area pulled off the double dip, Jordan Spieth was one of those who watched the Super Bowl in person after being at TPC Scottsdale. He had his best score of the week that Sunday, shooting a final-round 65 to tie for seventh before hustling across town.

“Did it in 2015 when it was there. I went with [caddie] Michael [Greller]. It was the Seahawks-Patriots, and Michael is a big Seahawks fan, and that’s when they threw it instead of handing it to [Marshawn] Lynch on [second] down,” Spieth recalled when asked at the Sony Open in Hawaii earlier this month. “I’ve been a Tom Brady guy, him being an Under Armour guy, and so I was on the good end and Michael was not. It was just us two who went to the game, sitting together.”

The Arizona Super Bowls have definitely been memorable. In 1996, Larry Brown picked off two passes to lead the Dallas Cowboys past the Pittsburgh Steelers the day after Phil Mickelson outlasted Justin Leonard in a playoff in a Saturday finish.

1996 Phoenix Open
Phil Mickelson rides with his wife Amy back to the 18th green after defeating Justin Leonard in a three-hole playoff to win the 1996 Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale. (Photo: Simon P. Barnett/Allsport)

In 2008, after J.B. Holmes defeated Mickelson in a playoff, David Tyree made a memorable catch against his helmet to help the New York Giants stun the New England Patriots, ending their perfect season.

The 2015 game, though, was talked about for a long time because of how it finished.

“It was a wild ending. It was good. It was fun. Certainly made the Phoenix Open crazier than it is,” Spieth said, adding that he’s probably going to go once again to the football game after the golf tournament ends.

“I would say more than 50 percent chance.”

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Adam Scott has ’embarrassing reason’ for not including WM Phoenix Open on his 2023 PGA Tour schedule

Scott “didn’t even consider it from the beginning” due to a scheduling mistake. Whoops.

Adam Scott shot four rounds in the 60s to earn a top-25 finish at the Sony Open in Hawaii, “fairly solid stuff” by his own standards.

After two starts in Hawaii to begin 2023, the 42-year-old will now take a month off to practice and relax back home in Australia before returning to action at the Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club near Los Angeles, Feb. 16-19. That means Scott will use his one “Get Out of a Designed Event Free” card on the WM Phoenix Open the week prior. So why skip the Greatest Show on Grass?

“Well, I don’t have a good reason for you. The embarrassing reason is I actually thought it went Phoenix, Pebble, LA, so I didn’t even consider it from the beginning,” said Scott on Sunday after his final-round 3-under 67. “Yeah, I think spending a little time at home in Australia seems too good for me after two and a half years of not going home, so an extra week is nice.”

Late last year, Scott brought caddie Steve Williams back into the mix at the Australian PGA Championship and Australian Open. Williams and Scott’s other caddie, Greg Hearmon, are sharing the role this year, and the Genesis at Riviera is a Williams event.

“Yeah, I think generally the whole idea with a job share is that it’s always fresh,” explained Scott, “that whoever you’ve got out there you haven’t seen for a little while, maybe eight weeks or so since they’ve been on the bag, and then they do a run and someone else comes back and it’s all very fresh, and I think it’s a good thing at this point in a long career.”

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Scottie Scheffler headlines the early wave of commitments to WM Phoenix Open, the second ‘elevated’ event in 2023

The second “elevated” event on the PGA Tour’s 2023 calendar announced its initial list of commitments.

The second elevated event on the PGA Tour’s 2023 calendar announced its initial list of commitments Thursday.

The WM Phoenix Open, which will have a purse of $20 million in February, will have its defending champion back, as Scottie Scheffler headlines the early wave of commitments.

The tournament was one of four named in October as “elevated” events featuring a massive increase in prize money. The Sentry Tournament of Champions, which is next week in Hawaii, is also an elevated event with a purse of $15 million.

Pat Williams, the 2023 tournament chairman at TPC Scottsdale, also announced Xander Schauffele and Sam Burns will be in the field.

“With the WM Phoenix Open being named a designated event, we have high expectations for showcasing the best field we’ve ever had,” Williams said in a release. “We can’t wait to introduce the rest of the field as we get closer to the 88th edition of ‘The People’s Open.'”

In 2022, Scheffler broke through at the Phoenix Open for his first PGA Tour win. He went on to win three more times, including the Masters, in the span of six starts. He later rose to No. 1 in the world ranking and capped his season atop the Tour’s money list.

Schauffele won three times last season, the Zurich Classic, the Travelers Championship and the Genesis Scottish Open, and posted seven top-10s. He also had a top-15 finish in three of the four majors: the Open Championship, U.S. Open and PGA Championship. He finished solo third last year in Phoenix behind Scheffler, who beat Patrick Cantlay in a playoff.

Burns had three wins last season and was a member of the Presidents Cup team. He was one of five golfers to win at least three times last season.

The field will be 132 with the winner taking home an oversized check good for $3.6 million. PGA Tour members have until 5 p.m. Friday, Feb. 3 to commit to play in the 2023 WM Phoenix Open, Feb. 9-12.

Barring a long playoff, the tournament will conclude about 20 minutes before kickoff of the Super Bowl, which will be played about 30 miles to the west in Glendale.

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