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Arizona’s Best Courses

By Shannon Gazze
GolfArizona.com Valley Editor

The magazine put out its prestigious annual list of the top 100 U.S. courses recently, and three clubs in Northern Arizona made the grade. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that if you feel like playing any one of the three, you’d better know someone.

"America’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses" ran in Golf Digest in May and included The Canyon Course at Forest Highlands Golf Club in Flagstaff (57), Desert Forest Golf Club in Carefree (63) and The Estancia Club in Scottsdale (65). All three are private courses, which may be one reason they beat out the best of the Valley’s public issues, Scottsdale’s Troon North. Troon North, which was dropped from the 1999 top 100 along with Troon Golf and Country Club after the two stood at 91 and 93 respectively on last year’s list, receives quite a bit more play than the typical private course, and conditioning can go a long way to picking the cream of the crop.

"We have 300 members and we get about 17,800 rounds per year," says Estancia’s Len Zanora. That translates into less than 50 rounds per day. That’s just over 12 foursomes a day. At resort course like the Troons, 12 foursomes is a slow morning.

At Grayhawk, another prestigious resort track, I recently played an early afternoon round on the Talon course. By the end of the day, the course was still awesome, but the greens looked like they had been on the receiving end of a Mike Tyson pummeling. I had my choice on any given putt of rolling over a ball mark or a spike mark.

But it takes more than keeping your course pristine to make a dent in the top 100. That’s why Estancia and its leap to 65 are the biggest surprise by far of Arizona’s new "Big 3." The course only was finished in 1996, when Golf Digest awarded it the title of Best New Private Course. The publication praised designer Tom Fazio for providing wild greens, a change of direction on almost every hole and a variety of uphill and downhill shots, saying "Estancia is as solid as the surrounding granite hills that stand like silent spectators."

Unranked last year, Estancia offers its members serenity, scenery and service.

With players teeing off at an average of a foursome per hour, the serenity comes naturally. Once while playing a municipal course in Pennsylvania on a particularly quiet day, I put aside my clubs and laid down in the middle of the fairway. I stayed there for several minutes, just taking in the warm sunlight on my face, the smell of the freshly cut grass and all of the majesty of golf.

In another instance, I played the Penn State Blue and White course after a fierce downpour. Being the only player to brave the conditions, I was rewarded with a $5 round of golf on my very own course - not a soul for miles and the best 27 holes I’ve ever experienced.

And so I can understand how lucky those 300 members of Estancia must feel. No tee times needed. Just walk into the clubhouse and step up to the bat. Or take a leisurely stroll over to the practice range first if you prefer. All the while, knowing that no one in the country is enjoying a golf facility much better than your own.

If it’s scenery you crave, Estancia can provide. Just witness the zeal with which Zanora describes his home course: "The land the course sits on is phenomenal," he says. "The course conditions are awesome. I can’t find any other course that even compares."

And yet, Fazio built a member-friendly course on that beautiful land. It’s long enough at 7,146 yards from the championship tees, but quite a bit more manageable (6678 yards) during a normal round played from the back tees. The traditional bent-grass setup laid into a desert landscape allows for generous driving areas. Most of the difficulty comes in the greens, which are medium-sized and undulating. A stream comes into play on two holes, adding to the traditional feel of the course.

Service? You say you want service? Well how about a bag handler and guide from the recently initiated caddie program. Or perhaps you need to work on your game. No problem there, as Estancia has an on-site teaching pro.

The one service Estancia can’t provide is allowing non-members onto their nationally renowned golf course. "I get phone calls constantly from people asking to play," Zanora says. "But we have pretty strict guidelines and I’m not able to accommodate them."

So if Estancia’s so great, why was it around for three years before it cracked the top 100?

First of all, nobody likes a cocky rookie. It took a few years for the club to gain some notoriety, especially considering that a select few golfers have ever even stepped foot on the course.

• Estrella Mountain Ranch course review • Past course reviews from GolfArizona.com • Past articles by Shannon Gazze

The members at Estancia, Zanora says, take great pride in their private facility and the accolades that it has received. But forgive them if they don’t care too much if the word gets out on their little slice of heaven.

At one point in the planning stages, Estancia was controlled by Troon management, which was considering a resort course on the land. Another investor came in and built the Estancia that stands today.

To 300 golfers, that was very good news. To the rest of us, its the bummer of all bummers.

The Estrancia Club
9801 E Dynamite Rd
Scottsdale, Arizona 85262
(480) 473-4400