Designed by Jay Morrish, the North Course at the Boulders Resort and Golden Door Spa boasts a target-style design that requires strategic placement off the tee and approach shots into well protected, bentgrass greens.
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The Pinnacle and Monument golf courses at Troon North Golf Club consistently rate among the best public options in Arizona. Recently rerouted, redesigned and reseeded, they're now more natural and include holes swapped between the courses. So if you've not played Troon North since before 2007, you're in for a treat.
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We-Ko-Pa Golf Club's Saguaro Course opened in 2006 and was designed by the team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, who built a walker-friendly course where most tees are usually just footsteps from the green. Laid out naturally along the desert terrain, the course has a wonderful, rolling look that never looks very manufactured.
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Omni Tucson National Catalina Course is the rare course in Arizona that's packed with golf history. Catalina Course (which has gone by other names over the years, too) has hosted more than 30 PGA Tour events. Arnold Palmer, Johnny Miller and Tom Watson have all won here.
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Arizona Biltmore Links Course is the newer of the two Biltmore courses, and it's one of the more original golf courses you'll find in the Phoenix-Scottsdale resort corridor. Architect Bill Johnson forces you to think on a course that weaves around and features more uneven lies than you might find in a full two weeks of tame resort golf.
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The Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa's Adobe Course turns back the clock on Arizona golf while giving you plenty of green to look at. This is the second-oldest golf course in the entire Phoenix-Scottsdale resort corridor, and it's green and greener.
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You get a lot of golf for not a lot of money at Canoa Ranch Golf Club, a hidden gem in Tucson's shadow. This is real desert golf, not the stuff of resort courses, with a 139 slope rating and plenty of dramatic shots.
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The Coyote is the most natural of the three nines at the Starr Pass Country Club in Tucson. It winds through desert, with the linked JW Marriott resort largely out of site. Instead you get towering 150-year-old Saguaro cacti and plenty of chances to spray it out of bounds.
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With little mounds all over the fairways, designer Bill Phillips makes sure you'll have some awkward lies, but these can help your score too: Errant shots tend to kick back into the fairways. You're not going to lose a ton of golf balls at Kokopelli Golf Club.
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This is showy desert golf with fawning service. Designers John Faught and Tom Lehman don't go easy on golfers; you have to work for your score here, with plenty of distinctive holes that cut scenically around desert obstacles.
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