AZ Golf Guides

OUTLYING AREAS

Apache Stronghold Golf Club

SAN CARLOS

The name brings to mind Old West images other than golf, but here, successful course design defends its strategy against the strongest players, making the name Apache Stronghold more than apt.

Owned and operated—and essentially built—by the San Carlos Apache Indian Nation, Apache Stronghold Golf Club stands as the sensational focal point of their Best Western Apache Gold Casino Resort near Globe, 90 miles east of Phoenix on US Highway 70.

The name actually pays tribute to a mystical haven in which the Apaches could “walk invisibly among their enemies.” The name and the vision it conjures certainly hold true for golfers out West. A stunning bronze sculpture of an Apache warrior on horseback watches over play at the 9th green.

Tom Doak designed Apache Stronghold to welcome players to a refreshed view of the Arizona landscape, but also to strike back when threatened. In his inimitable style of “leaving well enough alone,” Doak made perfect use of natural contours with minimal earth-moving.

Apache Stronghold weaves and roams through rugged canyons and secluded washes in unobstructed high-desert terrain to create a pure Arizona golf experience. There will never be real-estate development anywhere on this golf course to hinder the magnificent distant mountain vistas that take in the Chiricahua, Arivaipa, Superstition, and White Mountains.

Doak’s remarkable routing takes full advantage of the dramatic ridges, where unobtrusive elevated tees and greens meld easily into their surroundings. The layout plays as short as 5,535 yards, but anyone who dares can march off a whopping 7,519 yards from the tournament tees. Somewhere in between lies a beautiful and very playable track that recognizes the strengths and weaknesses of every level of play. It challenges the best, yet lets beginning and intermediate players off the hook. The key is simply to choose correctly from up to five sets of tees.

The 2nd hole exemplifies the influence of nature on the architect’s strategy. The 427-yard dogleg-right par 4 edges along an offshoot of Gilson Wash, the course’s predominant land feature. From an ample fairway, the green is guarded by the wash in front and by two commanding bunkers on the right.

At merely 325 yards, the par-4 Number 6 invites stronger players to think through the rolling fairway and bunkers craftily situated to thwart all but the most accurate drives.

On the back side, the natural desert contours come into full play, particularly on the par-5 Number 15, which cascades as much as 615 yards from the tips, down a slope, and around a corner to a heavily bunkered green.

The golf club opened in 1999 as one of Golf Magazine’s Top 10 New Public Golf Courses, and Golfweek listed Apache Stronghold as Arizona’s Top-Rated Public Course in 2001 and in 2002. This renowned course makes a superlative amenity to the adjacent Apache Gold Casino Resort, which features live “after-golf” entertainment, a 500-slot casino, a swimming pool, and a spa.

DAVID HUBBARD