We-Ko-Pa Golf Club: Review from Arizona Golf Guides

We-Ko-Pa Golf Club offers up two award-winning courses with distinct flavors, allowing this property to appeal to any golfer from the Phoenix area and beyond. Any golf fan would do well to put these courses on his "To Play" list.

480-836-9000 18200 E. Toh Vee Cir. Fort McDowell, AZ 85264 www.wekopa.com public holes: 36 course par: 72 (Cholla), 71 (Saguaro) rating/slope: Cholla - championship 73.3/137 - back 70.7/131 - forward 69.1/119 Saguaro - tournament 72.4/138 - back 70.7/135 - middle 69.1/128 - forward 68.4/112 range of yardages: Cholla 5,289–7,225, Saguaro 5,061–6,912 director of golf: Brett Trenter course pro: Matt Barr cart & green fees: phone for information course designers: Scott Miller (Cholla), Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw (Saguaro) shoe policy: alternative cleats required

We-Ko-Pa's Scott Miller-designed Cholla Course vaulted onto many golfers’ mustplay lists when Sports Illustrated named it one of the Top 10 New Golf Courses in the World just two days after the course opened in 2001. More recently, Golf Magazine named the club’s two courses, Cholla and Saguaro, to its 2009 list of Top 100 Courses You Can Play in the US.

Threading through an open expanse overlooking the Verde and Salt River Valleys, Red Mountain, and the legendary Superstition Mountains, and named for the Yavapais’ sacred Four Peaks rising in the east, We-Ko-Pa will always preserve the essence and purity of desert-style golf. There is as much talk of the the sensational views from the golf courses as there is of the challenges at hand.

Getting down to golf, Miller’s Cholla routing is dramatic to say the least as it plays across desert washes, atop ridges, then flows flawlessly into greens tucked into hillsides and desert arroyos. Each hole is imbued with its separate strategic flavor, yet flows in rhythm with the holes before and those that follow—seamless to the point that Number 18 crops up almost unexpectedly.

Saguaro, on the other hand, has a completely different look than Cholla. The Coore and Crenshaw layout has the feel of a classic, walkable private club found on the East Coast, where greens are close to tees and the course just follows the natural movement of the land.

The majority of the greens on Saguaro are open in front to allow for run-up shots. However, it is the subtle pitch and roll of the terrain just prior to, and on the greens that give each hole much of its unique playing characteristics.

Whether you play the Cholla Course or the Saguaro Course, you’re in for an award-winning desert golf experience. At We-Ko-Pa, it’s just you, your ball, and good old Mother Nature.

Phoenix-area Golf Information from Arizona Golf Guides

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