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.
At least once a round a links golfer is guaranteed to get a bounce he or she doesn’t understand.
On the surface — literally the surface — playing golf in, say, the deserts of the Coachella Valley in California and playing golf on the links courses of The Open Championship couldn’t be more different.
Golf in the desert tends to be strictly target golf, with big lakes and large bunkers protecting large greens surrounded by homes at both private and public golf courses. Even in drought conditions, desert golf courses find enough water to be green while still playing firm and fast.
The links golf courses of The Open Championship, like Royal Liverpool last week, have few if any lakes or water of any kind with the exception of the occasional burn. The courses can be green or brown, depending on what the weather pattern has been in the last few months since there are no irrigation systems. The firm and fast conditions are also dependent on the weather, not the art of course setup.
The large bunkers of the desert give way on a links course to tiny pot bunkers that seem to suck a ball in from 20 yards away. And if greens in the desert are large, they are nothing compared to the typically massive putting surfaces of links courses.
But the two kinds of golf are not mutually exclusive, as the roster of winners at The Open Championship and The American Express prove. Since the tournament now known as The American Express debuted in 1960, seven players have won both a desert title and an Open Championship. Some of those names are obvious, like Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Phil Mickelson and David Duval. Others, like Justin Leonard and Bill Rogers, might not be as obvious.
It is the unique nature of links golf that causes the Open Championship (yes, you can call it the British Open) to be so compelling for American golf fans.
In a game where the differences in design can make a player chase a tee time on a different course, The Open Championship offers not just different designs, but a different take on the game entirely.
A view of the green on the par-4 1st hole for the 2023 Open Championship (plays as the 17th hole for the club routing) at Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake, England. (Photo: David Cannon/R&A/R&A via Getty Images)
Links courses fight back
Even in a day of powerful players and souped-up clubs and golf balls, links golf can still encourage a player to play the game along the ground. Links courses have been no more made obsolete than some of the great old courses in this country, still finding a way somehow to defend themselves against technology.
Of course, the greatest defense for a links golf course is the weather. Conditions that would shut down a PGA Tour event or send recreational golfers scurrying to the clubhouse don’t stop play in the United Kingdom. Unfortunately for the golfers at Royal Liverpool, some of those conditions appeared during the 151st Open. Wind worthy of a tropical storm and sideways rain might not be tolerated at Augusta National, but it was often the norm at this year’s Open Championship.
Links golf also requires greater patience than the typical American course. At least once a round a links golfer is guaranteed to get a bounce he or she doesn’t understand, a lie in a bunker that seems unfair or a wayward drive into an area that would take a search team to find the ball. Let that get to you, frustrate you, even anger you and your round will unravel. Accept the unfair or unforeseeable and you can still play well.
Hardcore golf fans were riveted to the television last weekend to watch Royal Liverpool and appreciate a kind of golf that just isn’t available in the United States.
But casual fans who might not understand the links game should watch these events, too.
It might not seem like “real” golf for American golfers, but the links game is actually as real as it gets in the game.
Larry Bohannan is the golf writer for The Desert Sun. You can contact him at (760) 778-4633 or at larry.bohannan@desertsun.com. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @larry_bohannan.
