Arizona Dreaming: Greater Phoenix and Northern Arizona Golf Courses – Page 4

by David Hubbard

Sedona Golf Resort in Sedona, Arizona

North to the “other Arizona”

As the world perceives the great Southwest, the pine-forested regions from Prescott to Flagstaff and the White Mountains to Williams come across as the “other Arizona.”

High-end master-planned enclaves such as Forest Highlands Golf Club and Pine Canyon Club in Flagstaff, The Rim Golf Club and Chaparral Pines in Payson, and Torreon Golf Club in Show Low set the stage for high-country golf, with several inviting options.

Developers in Prescott have quietly spiced up this community’s pioneering spirit with new opportunities for golf. Driving into StoneRidge Golf Course, the first glimpse of the course is of fairways crawling through the vertical rise of ridges and canyons in the foothills of the Bradshaw Mountains. The formidable layout invites golfers to a dramatic challenge with a 350-vertical-foot shift in elevation.

Elephant Rocks Golf Course in Williams, Arizona – Courtesy of Elephant Rocks Golf Course/Bob Delander

Thirty miles west of Flagstaff, the city of Williams scored big on Northern Arizona’s public golf scene when it opened Elephant Rocks Golf Course. Near the Utah border, the Lake Powell National Golf Course in Page basks in the glow of awe-inspiring, one-of-a-kind views of Glen Canyon, Glen Canyon Dam, and Lake Powell.

The looming sandstone red-rock cliffs that surround Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon garner worldwide attention, but golfers naturally gravitate to the golf courses in the Village of Oak Creek and take in the sights from contrasting green fairways.

Sedona Golf Resort spreads through a cedar-strewn valley surrounded by mountains on all sides, where dramatic elevation shifts set up the challenges and spectacular vantage points. The course’s Number 10 is easily Arizona’s most photographed golf hole.

Robert Trent Jones Sr.’s traditional-style Oakcreek Country Club melds with the timeless grandeur of Red Rock Country. Built in 1968, his classic design elements are all in place at this semi-private facility. A recent renovation restored the fairway and greenside bunkers to the master’s original specifications. The 4th hole, a 185-yard par 3, is quintessential “golf in the Red Rocks.”

Phoenix-based writer and editor David Hubbard once boasted of playing nearly every golf course in the Greater Phoenix area and most of those up north. Today, he concedes the notches in his driver no longer match the growing number of courses he has yet to discover.

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