The lights on the #miniDunes short course can sync with music, offering a new cool experience in the desert.
Golfers looking to beat the heat this summer have a new option just south of Phoenix: Ak-Chin Southern Dunes has lit its par-3 course, named #miniDunes.
The six-hole short course sits on the range at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, where the main 18-hole layout was designed by Brian Curley and Fred Couples – the course ranks No. 6 on Golfweek’s Best public-access course list in Arizona.
Holes on the short course stretch from 60 to 115 yards, and the layout features 15 lighting poles. The 88 LED lights can be synced to flash to music. Tee times become available April 26, and walk-ins are welcome.
The range serves as a normal practice area in the morning, then it is picked and holes are cut for afternoon play on the short course that was introduced in 2014 with new greens dotting the range. Night golf ramps it up another level in the desert setting, and the club’s restaurant will be represented at the short course with the Arroyo Grill – On the Go food truck/trailer.
“We are proud to offer the lighted #miniDunes as just the latest example of the commitment the Ak-Chin Indian Community has to creating memorable golf experiences for not only our local communities of Ak-Chin and Maricopa, but also for all of the region and its visitors who can now experience a taste of what Ak-Chin Southern Dunes has to offer at night,” Ak-Chin Indian Community Chairman Robert Miguel said in a media release announcing the night option. “I can’t wait to play golf under the lights with my friends and family.”
After a successful inaugural championship, the NIT of college golf is returning this May at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, Arizona. Last year, the Texas State men and Penn State women won their respective tournaments.
The NCAA announced in May of 2022 it would allow teams to play in one season-ending event. Golfweek teamed up with Ak-Chin Southern Dunes, just south of Phoenix, to host the NGI.
This year, the NGI will again feature a men’s and women’s championship, each with a maximum of 18 teams playing 54 holes of stroke play. Women will play first, May 9-12, with the men the following week, May 16-19.
There were 13 men’s teams and 10 women’s teams who participated last year, and more teams are expected to play this May. The field is limited to 18 teams using rankings and committee picks.
The NGI gives teams on the outside of the NCAA postseason a chance to have a season-ending championship of their own.
Phoenix and Scottsdale are stacked with great public-access golf options. Which are best?
Arizona is home to a great selection of desert golf courses, and most of those are centered around Phoenix and Scottsdale. But which are the best?
Thanks to Golfweek’s Best annual rankings of top public-access courses in each state, we can break out the highest-ranked layouts in the Phoenix and Scottsdale area. For the purpose of this exercise, we limited driving time to about an hour from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. (We used Google Maps for its drive times, keying in the courses on a mid-afternoon – take all drive times around the Valley of the Sun with a grain of salt, of course.)
There are other options not included here, courses that were beyond that hour limit. If you have a little more time for the drive, Wickenburg Ranch’s Big Wick course ranks No. 2 among all public-access courses in the state, but it’s about 90 minutes northwest of the airport. Similar story for several strong options in Tucson about two hours to the southeast.
A little background on how we do this: The hundreds of members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them on 10 criteria on a points basis of 1 through 10. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings are averaged to produce all our Golfweek’s Best course rankings.
The courses on this list allow public access in some fashion, be it standard daily green fees, through a resort or by staying at an affiliated hotel. If there’s a will, there’s a tee time – no membership required.
Keep scrolling to see how they stack up, and check out the accompanying map to get a handle on roughly where everything is located.
Welcome to Golfweek’s Best 2023 Casino Courses in the United States. This list focuses on courses owned and/or operated by or in conjunction with casinos, with data pulled from Golfweek‘s massive database of course rankings.
The hundreds of members of Golfweek‘s course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on our 10 criteria. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings on each course are averaged to produce a final rating for each that is then used to compile the Golfweek’s Best course rankings.
Listed with each course below is its average rating, location, designer(s) and whether the course is modern (m, built in or after 1960) or classic (c, built before 1960).
ASU-bound Anawin Pikulthong won the Golfweek Southwest Junior by a whopping 13 shots.
Anawin Pikulthong, 18, an Arizona State University commit from nearby Gilbert, Arizona, won the 2023 Golfweek Southwest Junior Open at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes Golf Club in Maricopa, Arizona, on Sunday.
The limited-field Southwest Junior Open, now in its 22nd year, is recognized as one of the nation’s premier junior golf tournaments.
Pikulthong enters the Golfweek record book after his dominating victory becoming the first player to four-peat. Along the way, Pikulthong took out some of Arizona’s top junior talent to claim the coveted title.
Pikulthong, who said he hasn’t been playing up to his potential lately, used his relaxed attitude and intimate knowledge of Southern Dunes to put on an exhibition. His performance was particularly impressive given the combination of heat, fast greens and tucked pins.
His victory came after a thrilling final round at Southern Dunes where he shot 9-under 63 to finish with a two-day total score of 19-under 125. He hit accurate drives, approach shots and made putts while avoiding any costly mistakes en route to his two-day combined scorecard that included 17 birdies and one eagle.
His closest competitors were Tommie Clark of Mesa and Kyle Koski of Chandler who posted 6-under 138 and 5-under 139, respectively.
Sirina Ganne, 15, of Holmdel, New Jersey, added another first-place finish to her resume.
Ganne, a rising high school sophomore, is the current New Jersey Girls State Champion, a title she won earlier this month at Raritan Valley Country Club in Bridgewater, New Jersey.
Sirina Ganne holds a trophy after winning the 2023 Golfweek Southwest Junior Open at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes Golf Club in Maricopa, Arizona. (Photo: Golfweek)
Her two-day total of 144 (70-74) earned her a three-shot win over Angela Zhikun-Chen of Chandler. Ganne finished even par; the rest of the field finished over par during the two-day event.
With her victory at the Golfweek Southwest Junior Open, Sirina will get an exemption into the Golfweek International Junior Invitational, Nov. 4-5, in Orlando.
Ganne’s older sister, Megha, just finished her freshman season at Stanford.
Texas State capped off its season with a third team title.
From where Shane Howell was sitting, Sunday at the National Golf Invitational felt like the Kentucky Derby.
“Somehow, some way we ended up on top of the board,” said Howell, head coach at Texas State.
Scoring swings are a reality of college golf, but the final round at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, Arizona, was something else entirely. Five teams landed within two shots of each other at the top of the leaderboard with Texas State, at 7 under for the week, narrowly beating Penn State and Wyoming, who tied for second at 6 under. Ball State and Stetson tied for fourth at 5 under. All five teams had the lead at some point on Sunday.
Howell normally isn’t a serial Golfstat refresher while he coaches, but Sunday was a different story. Howell checked the leaderboard after the first six holes to find his counters 9 over for the day. He checked it again after 12 holes and saw the beginning of a comeback.
Howell went to work on the par-5 16th hole, which Texas State played in 2 under thanks to birdies from Marcelo Garza and Jack Burke. Howell’s assistant Logan Davis was up ahead at the par-3 17th where the team struggled, counting two bogeys and a double and losing their lead to Wyoming.
By the time Garza, in Texas State’s anchor position, was standing over his approach at the par-4 18th, Howell was next to him. Garza hit his drive right into some high brush but got free relief from an old sprinkler head and punched down the fairway to 90 yards.
“I met him down there,” Howell said. “He said, ‘Hey, where do we stand?’ I said, ‘Bogey gets us the title.’ So he hit it up on the middle of the green about 35 feet and two-putted.”
Ball State was one of those teams circling the lead and while the Cardinals ultimately came up two shots short of Texas State, sophomore Kash Bellar became the inaugural NGI champion.
Every time Bellar saw Ball State head coach Mike Fleck on the course on Sunday, he asked for a status report.
“He would just tell us, ‘Hey, we’re ok, doing alright, falling behind,’” Bellar said.
Bellar’s final-round card wasn’t flashy – he made three birdies and three bogeys for an even-par 72 that left him with a one-shot win at 7 under. He managed birdie on the driveable par-4 14th from a greenside bunker, which gave him a big momentum boost and then sealed the title by rolling in a 15-footer straight uphill for birdie on the par-4 closing hole.
The NGI title marks Bellar’s first college title, and his first win in golf since the 2021 Indiana High School State Championship.
“I’ve been close a lot this spring,” Bellar said. “It was really nice to get it done this week.”
Being the first is especially sweet, and something Bellar had just begun to think about after the conclusion of the tournament even though the possibility had crossed his lips before he ever traveled with the team to Arizona.
“I forget which buddy I told,” Bellar said. “I was telling him that this is the first time there has ever been an NIT for golf. How would it be to be the first one to win it?”
Texas State will process that, too. The NGI is the team’s third title this season, which is an exceptional number for a team that struggled with injury as much as the Bobcats did. At some point during the year, three of Howell’s five starters were out with injury. That includes Garza, who played the first tournament of the year, sat out the rest of the fall with a wrist injury and didn’t start playing again until January. That made it fitting for Garza to be the one to clinch the NGI title.
“They’ve had a great year,” Howell said. “We felt grateful all week to be there because we felt like we’ve had a good year and for Lance (Ringler, of Golfweek) to host this tournament was really kind of a second life for us. They took advantage of it.”
Like a lot of teams, Texas State felt like it had some unfinished business after the Sun Belt Conference Championship, especially after a disappointing final round that left them short of the conference match-play bracket.
“We were really grateful to have another chance to come and play,” Howell said.
Before they arrived in the Arizona desert, Howell spoke to his team about turning the NGI into a springboard to the next level. A wild Sunday afternoon leaderboard seems like ample preparation for anything next season could throw at Texas State.
“We feel like we’re a regional team,” Howell said, “so we’re like this week kind of starts our climb into next year. We kind of used that as motivation getting ready for the tournament. Win, lose or draw, we were just going to try to make sure we finished on a good note.”
After a hard day of work in the desert, Joe Jensen took his Wyoming team to the shade of a nearby tree and let them take a breath of relief. The second round of the National Golf Invitational at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, Arizona, was a battle for the Cowboys. Jensen wanted his men to know he was proud of the fight.
“I am proud of my group because I know we slipped, and for them to fight back the bulk of the day, which they did a great job of, and so as a coach that makes me proud,” he said. “Because as I told them, their attitude stayed the same, they were still engaged, we didn’t get off to the best start but we kept fighting and fighting.”
Wyoming started the day with a one-shot lead and ended it four shots behind second-round leader Texas State. Oh, but the second round of the inaugural NGI was so much more complicated than that.
As the day wore on, seven different teams rotated through the lead. On a day like this, every shot counts, and Wyoming had to truly grind.
“There were a lot of hard-fought pars on par 5s, and the strategy,” Jensen said, “and I could go on and on and on about the thought process of gosh, let’s just make par on this and get out of here.”
To Jensen, playing for the inaugural NGI title is an “unbelievable” feeling – so much so that he knows he’ll have to work not to betray the process that helped get his team to this point. Don’t expect Jensen’s enthusiasm level to change or his team’s morning routines to waiver.
Like Jensen, Texas State head coach Shane Howell liked the fight he saw in his team, particularly on the back nine. The Bobcats turned around a shaky opening stretch and went 11 under coming in to take the lead.
“Proud of the guys for hanging in there after an up-and-down front nine today,” he said. “It allowed them to come home strong on the back nine and give them a chance tomorrow.
“We are so grateful for the opportunity to be at the NGI and the guys are looking forward to the final round tomorrow.”
On Sunday, Utah Valley will join Wyoming and Texas State in the final grouping. The Wolverines, at 5 under, trail by six. Head coach Chris Curran’s squad has had a lot of experience in that position this season, having won three tournaments in the spring season.
“I think our message is just going to be, hey you’re not sleeping with the lead, you’ve got no pressure, let’s come out firing tomorrow and try to go shoot the lowest score that we can and count them up at the end,” he said.
In a lot of ways, this Utah Valley team has shattered the norms for Wolverine golf. Brady McKinlay won four individual titles in a row in the fall and qualified for an NCAA regional, making him ineligible to compete this week. Caden Weber won the Bash at the Beach in March. Curran thinks the whole roster fed off those performances – particularly McKinlay’s stretch.
“They practice with him and play with him every day and see what he’s doing and they’re like, well I can hang with him,” Curran said. “It really elevated the expectation level of everybody else.”
For the first time in a decade coaching Utah Valley, Curran thinks any guy in the starting five could win the individual title if he gets hot. This week, Curran is discovering just how deep his roster goes with McKinlay out as well as Kai Iguchi, who competed in the PGA WORKS Individual Collegiate Championship.
“It’s kind of like a new crew for us,” Curran said. “We were joking around a little bit saying this is the first qualifier for next year just with who we’ve brought.”
Utah Valley’s NGI lineup includes redshirt freshman Braden O’Grady, who has never teed it up in competition with the Wolverines before this week. O’Grady transferred to Utah Valley in December after a year at Western Washington and was just outside the traveling squad throughout the spring season.
“He never really got a chance to get into the lineup and then kind of with how things have transpired, we were like, we’ve got to get this kid some reps,” Curran said. “He’s come in and done a great job for us.”
Utah Valley is on track to break its program scoring record at the NGI this week, which is just another line in a historic season.
This is Utah Valley’s first postseason appearance, and they’re drawing some inspiration – and competition – from the men’s basketball program. In March, the Wolverines advanced to the semifinals of the National Invitational Tournament, the event comparable to the NGI in men’s golf.
“We’re now kind of joking that well, we have to do better than our basketball team did,” Curran said. “We have to go win this thing.”
There isn’t much breathing room on the first-round leaderboard at the National Golf Invitational.
There isn’t much breathing room on the first-round leaderboard at the National Golf Invitational. Even as Wyoming finished the day 8 under at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, Arizona, the Cowboys only gave themselves a one-shot cushion on Penn State.
The top nine spots on the leaderboard are separated by seven shots. Stetson, in 11th place at 2 over, is only 10 shots off the pace. And for a program that lives in the red, 10 shots is very much in the conversation.
The Hatters have never competed in the postseason before this year. Second-year head coach Danny Forshey has pushed a competitive culture back home in Daytona Beach, Florida, and it carried his team all the way to the desert.
Forshey, who previously coached at Appalachian State, Bethune-Cookman and Alcorn State, took inventory when he arrived two years ago. He brought in five new players this season to blend with the roster already in place. Then it became a birdie fest – all the time.
“We had a super competitive qualifying every time we qualified, and it was tough to get in the lineup,” Forshey said. “It forced guys to get better and shoot lower scores.”
Most of the time, it took rounds in the 60s, or at least under par, to get a seat in the team van. Some players didn’t get to compete in tournaments as much as they’d hoped, Forshey said, but the outcome was that competition sharpened the whole roster, top to bottom.
It showed in the fall.
Stetson was runner-up at three fall tournaments and won its own Daytona Beach Intercollegiate. Remarkably, the Hatters were under par as a team in each of 15 fall tournament rounds. After the first half of the season, Stetson was ranked No. 55 in the Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings. The team had as strong a fall season as any program in the 13-team NGI field.
“We have a special group now,” Forshey said, “this is by far the most special team I’ve been a part of.”
Opportunity begets opportunity, and a first foray into the postseason could conceivably open even more doors for Stetson. Forshey said his men are learning on the fly at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes. He has emphasized driving the ball well and playing for the first bounce on firm, desert greens.
Mason Quagliata knows all about it, having grown up in nearby Scottsdale, Arizona. Quagliata brought in a bogey-free, 4-under 68 to lead Stetson on Friday and is tied for third individually. Wyoming’s Tyler Severin has the individual lead at 6 under.
“I got off to a really good start, started birdie-birdie, so that always helps get into the flow of things,” Quagliata said. “And then the putter felt really good. Just felt like I got it in all the right spots, was getting up and down when I needed to and just felt like I was capitalizing on all the right opportunities.”
Quagliata, a redshirt junior, has never played a college event in his home state. Already this week, he’s had his teammates to his house and taken them to his home golf course.
As an upperclassmen, Quagliata has seen both the pre-Forshey era of Stetson golf and the post-era. If you weren’t working hard, Quagliata said of the new climate, you weren’t going to play.
“We definitely all got more comfortable under par when scores like that are being shot in qualifying because then you come out to a tournament and it’s not as big a deal to shoot under par when you’re doing it every time at your home course,” he said.
When he went through the recruiting process, Quagliata wasn’t much concerned with postseason. He wanted to go to a school where he could play and get better, but this week is a nice bonus.
Forshey is proud of the buy-in from players like Quagliata as well as new recruits who believed in what could be accomplished at Stetson. The NGI is a big step forward in the program’s progression.
“I think the thing that’s fun for us is this was an idea, it was a dream and it was just a thought a year or so ago,” Forshey said. “We tried to put a plan together to get a group of guys together that want to compete and can compete. Not everybody is interested in being a part of that because sometimes that means you might not get to play as much.
“We put together a special group and all the guys bought in. We’re an underdog story.”
“Our guys are excited that they get to go play in a postseason event.”
MARICOPA, Ariz. — Last week, the inaugural National Golf Invitational came to life.
Think NIT of college golf. Every team’s goal is to make it to the NCAA Championship, but sometimes there are teams eligible for NCAA Regionals that don’t get selected.
For some teams, like Arkansas State, it’s an opportunity for a postseason appearance and invaluable experience.
“If you look at college golf, especially in 2023, it’s as deep as it has ever been,” Arkansas State coach Mike Hagan said. “So if you just missed out on making regionals, that doesn’t mean you had a bad year. (The NGI) is a big deal for us.”
A look at the pin flag at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes, site of the 2023 National Golf Invitational. (Photo: Cameron Jourdan/Golfweek)
The Red Wolves are one of 13 teams competing on the men’s side in a field that includes Power 5 programs and mid-majors. The Penn State men are also in the field and will look to complete a sweep this week.
Wyoming coach Joe Jenson said having another postseason event will benefit college golf in the long run, too. He uses Colorado as an example, which got into regionals while being near the cut off and played its way into the NCAA Championship.
“We competed very closely with them all year, and it benefited us seeing their success,” Jenson said. “There’s just enough good teams that aren’t selection for regionals, so I can’t say enough about what this event means for players and us coaches.”
Checking in with Coach Jensen as the Cowboys prepare to compete in the Inaugural Golfweek NIT! 🤠⛳️ pic.twitter.com/710Z8VCX3q
On Thursday, windy conditions swept Ak-Chin Southern Dunes as teams paraded around the golf course getting last-minute preparations in. For some players, it would be their final college golf tournament. For others, the NGI could provide important postseason experience and lead to a jump start into their next season.
College golf’s new postseason event is here. And it’s something that’s only going to grow and provide championship opportunities for numerous schools worthy of hoisting a trophy.
“Our guys are excited that they get to go play in a postseason event,” Hagen said. “We get to maybe win a championship that not a lot of people get a chance to.”
The NGI bid came a little unexpectedly for Western Carolina.
Madison Isaacson will be roughly 2,000 miles from Cullowhee, North Carolina, by the time undergraduate commencement services begin at Western Carolina University on May 13. Isaacson, a fifth-year senior, earned a double major in sport management and business administration/law and a minor in marketing, but she won’t walk for her diploma. She has one last golf tournament to play.
When Western Carolina head coach Courtney Gunter found out the Catamounts had qualified for the inaugural Golfweek National Golf Invitational, a 54-hole postseason event similar to the National Invitational Tournament in college basketball, Isaacson was her first call. She wasn’t sure Isaacson would want to forfeit that rite of passage, but Isaacson hardly flinched.
“Graduation or playing in this first tournament in Arizona?” Isaacson said. “This is cooler, for me at least.”
Isaacson goes straight from the NGI at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, Arizona, to a summer job in Pinehurst, North Carolina. From there, she’ll join the women’s golf coaching staff at Gardner-Webb University as a graduate assistant. Playing the inaugural NGI will go right into her coaching toolkit as something she could perhaps use to help motivate her future players.
“This is something they can reach for,” she said.
The NGI bid came a little unexpectedly for Western Carolina players, who thought they were too low in the rankings (No. 111 in the Golfweek/Sagarin rankings) to qualify. But as soon as Gunter learned her team was in, she started calling down her roster. If you’re over it, she said, the season can end now.
“Every single one of them was like, ‘No, coach, let’s do it. That’s what we were working for, we want to go, we’re not done yet,’” Gunter remembered.
Gunter thinks she probably first found out about the National Golf Invitational on Twitter, and it was always in the back of her mind after that.
Western Carolina’s Madison Isaacson. (Photo: Charlie Bulla)
Western Carolina started the fall with a goal to be in the top 3 in the season-long Southern Conference rankings. Then the Catamounts won their first three tournaments of the fall season, and suddenly goals shifted – especially the one at the top of the page.
“After our fall, with it being so good and us having a decent ranking, our vision now is to make it to postseason, which was really cool for us to do that,” Gunter said.
After Western Carolina’s first two team wins, they were ranked inside the top 100 in the country. Gunter knew that, especially once the spring started, if her team didn’t keep winning, their ranking would likely fall. The Catamounts won their last regular-season tournament but finished third at the Southern Conference Championship. Furman won the Automatic Qualifying spot into NCAA regionals, but Western Carolina players still got a big confidence boost from their performance.
“This year, going into it,” Gunter said, “they knew they were a team that could win.”
That hasn’t been the case the past two seasons, when Western Carolina was eighth and then sixth at conference, and that’s why Gunter’s players were eager for a shot at postseason.
“I feel like they probably felt like they could have done so much more, they were still hungry for it,” Gunter said.
It’s getting more difficult each year for mid-majors to compete with Power 5 teams, and is especially difficult to earn an at-large bid to get into the postseason. Western Carolina hasn’t won its conference AQ since 2007.
The NGI presents a new carrot at the end of the season, however, and Gunter, who competed at the NCAA Women’s Championship twice as a player for the University of North Carolina, knows you can’t understand the postseason until you’ve seen the postseason.
“Most of the teams in this event we haven’t seen all year,” Gunter said of the 10-team NGI field. “It’s a lot of teams with rankings just as good or higher than ours. It’s going to be good experience regardless. It is a postseason event so it’s elevated.”
Once Western Carolina was in the field, it took some additional fundraising to make postseason a reality. As Julie Miller, Western Carolina’s Associate AD for Development and the sport supervisor for the golf programs, put it, how could you tell this team no?
“You play and you compete, you play collegiate sports to win so this is just that next step of winning,” Miller said.
No golf team in Western Carolina history has won more tournaments in a season than this one, which has brought some awareness around campus. Chancellor Kelli Brown even made time for an NGI sendoff so the seniors could get a picture with her in their caps and gowns.
Earlier in the schoolyear, the Catamounts men’s basketball team competed in the Collegiate Basketball Invitational and the women’s volleyball team earned a spot in the National Invitational Volleyball Championship. Now, the athletic department is rallying around women’s golf just as it did for those programs.
“Within the department, we had other coaches say that they would step up and support,” Miller said, “because they know how important it is to grow the brand of Western Carolina University and Catamount Athletics but also supporting each other because winners support winners.”
