Thanks to Boccieri Golf and their Robo Golf Pro, you can “feel” your perfect on-plane golf swing, over and over again. Because golfers come in all different sizes, your plane will be a bit different than mine, and a lot different than that guy over there.
The Robo Golf Pro is computer-coded with your individual physical size, together with your body’s flexibility and movement capabilities to swing you through your “personal” perfect swing plane. Watch the video to see the Robo Golf Pro in action with the Fox 10 News staff in Phoenix.
The training at Boccieri Golf mixes repetitions of your perfect plane swing on the Robo Golf Pro with hitting balls. You’ll find the more you feel that perfect plane swing on the Robo, when you step around the corner and start hitting shots, the more often you can reproduce it – and you retain that feeling a little longer each time.
For the average avid player, the results are immediate. Here’s our only warning: It’s a bit intoxicating. When you have a look at the shots your hitting with a move seems a lot easier than what you were using before, you’ll want more and more of that success.
Get in touch with Boccieri Golf at 888.788.8374 and schedule a free, 30-minute session. Feeling where your body and golf club should be, makes it a lot easier to get into that position again. And everyone deserves to strike a perfect golf shot, even if you must travel to Scottsdale to do it.
Put SunRidge Canyon Golf Club on your near-term play list and go enjoy one of Arizona’s most demanding, yet rewarding, championship layouts. Owners Don and Cindy Misheff, who purchased the club in 2010, have implemented some serious improvements during their stewardship and the results are spectacular.
First, the golf course. Long before the term became popular, avid local players respected Keith Foster’s 1995 “minimalist design” for its maximum challenge. The uphill climb home through holes 13-18, dubbed the “Wicked Six”, is one of the most memorable finishes in town.
These six closers require precise play to score well, but whatever you post, the spectacular scenery you traverse while playing them always seems to pay off in spades when the last putt is holed, high atop the property on the 18th green.
Looking down over the climb you just completed you’ll find within yourself a warm feeling of accomplishment and the quiet, rewarding sense of “a day well spent.”
True to form, the Misheff’s used the summer season to raise the SunRidge Canyon playing experience to a higher level by converting all 18 greens to Champion Dwarf Bermuda. Be advised the National Turfgrass Evaluation Program Trials concluded that Champion achieved STMP meter speeds approaching two feet faster than other ultradwarf cultivar surfaces.
Which is fine, since most players agree the “Can’t be too thin” and “Can’t be too rich” paradigm includes putting surfaces, “Can’t be too quick.”
The layout remain the terrific test it’s always been: two precise shots over two transition areas at the picturesque par-4 seventh, an elevated, white-knuckle tee shot at the water-wrapped par-3 14th and the solid, uphill 18th closer. The elegant greens only enhance the experience of playing SunRidge’s artful design.
And when the last putt drops, prepare yourself for more great fun: the new Wicked Six Bar and Grill at SunRidge Canyon.
The hacienda-style clubhouse at SunRidge has always provided one of the best “local hang” spots in town, but now it’s been amped up with a new full-service menu, an engaging staff and a comfortably-modern decor.
When you add in the elegant indoor-outdoor patio and that panoramic view of Four Peaks beyond, your card totals: great golf, good vibe, wicked fun.
CAREFREE, Arizona – Desert Forest, the first desert golf course ever built is still the best desert golf course ever built. Desert Forest Golf Club enlisted the services of former Coore & Crenshaw protégé, David Zinkand who masterfully designed and implemented a modernization of the golf course in four months’ time, within the club’s $3 million budget.
Desert Forest now plays at 7,201 yards from the tips and every green complex was returned to its original perimeter profile, including the restoration of putting surface contours which tend to soften over 50-plus years of service.
The most prominent visual change occurs here as well as the greenside bunkers were converted from the original oval-shaped design, a Lawrence trademark, to a more natural scalloped, rugged-edge shape favored by Zinkand, who carefully protected the original course design.
Desert Forest Golf Club – Hole No. 3
“The routing and the way the course sits naturally on the contours is the genius of Desert Forest, rather than having been graded to suit preconceived notions. Leaving this landscape intact was the most important aspect of respecting Mr. Lawrence’s design,” said Zinkand, a graduate of Cornell University.
“As we worked on the fairways, I re-contoured those areas so they appear as they did naturally, before the golf course was built. These tie-ins aren’t something that are readily apparent to many golfers, but removing that unnatural visual distraction enhances their experience nonetheless.”
Over the years, Zinkand has worked for numerous prominent architects, most notably Arthur Hills, Gil Hanse and Mike DeVries. It was as a Design Associate working for Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, that Zinkand contributed his finest efforts, creating feature shaping on many of their projects including Bandon Preserve and Bandon Trails in Bandon, Oregon, Saguaro course at We-Ko-Pa in Fountain Hills, Arizona along with the renovation of Lakewood Country Club in Dallas, Texas.
Desert Forest Golf Club – Hole No. 18
Zinkand is especially proud of the greenside bunkers and his newfound signature look. “The bunker edges are rugged. In fact, they are more rugged than even my bunker shaper, Jeff Bradley, was comfortable with at times. I pushed that envelope though to emphasize the rugged, natural character of the golf course. Desert Forest was the first desert golf course in the world! This place is really in the desert! It deserved to draw from that unique heritage and environment,” added Zinkand.
Celebrating 50 years of unparalleled success in 2012, Desert Forest Golf Club moves forward after an illustrious first half century collecting accolades from Golf Magazine, “50 Greatest Courses in the Last 50 Years,” and “Top 100 Courses in the U.S.”; Golf Digest, “Best 100 Courses in America for 17 Straight Years,” among many other notable awards.
Then, telephone your friend that holds a membership at Desert Forest and do what’s necessary to get it teed up; including an offer to wash and wax their car. It’s a small price to pay to savor the the first, and still the best, desert golf course in the game.
For more information on Desert Forest Golf Club and membership opportunities, call (480) 488-4589 or visit www.desertforestgolfclub.com.
Have Clubs, Will Travel is an entertaining “insider’s look” at the LPGA from the tour’s founding member and “ultimate insider,” Marilynn Smith.
A native of Topeka, Marilynn called herself “Just an ordinary gal from the Kansas prairie who has lived an extraordinary life.
“We were a mixture of war heroes, young kids, mothers and world-class athletes. We did things for ourselves, without management companies, a headquarters staff or swing gurus.”
With equal parts humor and sage commentary Marilynn notes, “Amazingly, we survived without corporate logos on our clothing.”
Marilynn and twelve co-founders started the Ladies Professional Golf Association in 1950:
Alice Bauer
Patty Berg
Bettye Danoff
Helen Detweiler
Marlene Bauer Hagge
Helen Hicks
Opal Hill
Betty Jameson
Sally Sessions
Shirley Spork
Louise Suggs
Babe Zaharias
Remember what the U.S. looked like at that time? Here’s a tip, Harry S. Truman was in the White House, Texaco Star Theater led the television popularity rankings and Ben Hogan would author his “Miracle at Merion” in June of that year.
With an assist from Bob Cayne, Marilynn blends personal stories from her World Golf Hall of Fame career with the hardscrabble realities of starting and nurturing the LPGA Tour right up to present day.
Courtesy cars and manicured golf courses may be considered customary today – after all, it is the LPGA Tour.
But if you’d like to know what it’s like to hit golf balls off home plate before the baseball game at the local MLB park to grow a gallery for tomorrow’s tournament round, Marilynn will tell you all about it.
Over sixty years later, Marilynn’s enthusiasm for the game is just as high, as it was on day one.
Four amateurs will be paired with an LPGA professional for a day of charity golf, good works and great fun. Click lpgafoundation.org/msmith for all the details.
You’ll find several ways to order hardcover copies of Have Clubs, Will Travel at MarilynnSmith.com, including a PayPal link for credit card transactions. Other options include paperback versions from Amazon, and eBook versions offered by Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other book vendors.
If you like golf, and the rich rewards it grants those who summon the grit and perseverance it sometimes demands of those who play, you’re gonna love this book.
The EL Series putters from Boccieri Golf will knock three shots off your handicap. Now. Right Now.
This is real simple, lads. As in “Why didn’t I think of that?” simple.
Years ago, we all added gap wedges to our golf bag because we agreed with what Tom Kite proved,
“The easiest and most reliable way to play accurate wedge shots is to use one golf swing and let the tool, the loft on the wedge selected for the shot, control the distance the golf ball travels.” It’s true. We all do it now. We hone one move, pick an appropriate tool and let physics do the rest.
The EL Series putters from Boccieri Golf apply the same fundamental truth to putting: Use one putting stroke and let the putter control the distance.
How? Well, that’s the simple part.
All things being equal for a given “size” putting stroke, the longer the putter shaft is, the farther the putt will travel. It’s more simple physics, pure truth, proven centuries ago.
With the EL (Extended Length) Series putters’ 17” long grip, the “accuracy-size” putting stroke you built for holing short putts now works for medium and long putts as well.
Just move your hands up the grip, apply the same stroke, and the longer tool guarantees the putt travels farther.
Click Boccieri Golf – YouTube Videos for a full demonstration by designer, Stephen Boccieri. It’s a quick study in how to hole more putts inside that “I should make this range” and why the EL Series putter is the best tool for the job.
Holing eight and 10 footers with the very same stroke that makes all the short ones is exhilarating. Those additional holed putts appear in the GHIN Index update in short order – that’s fun, too.
Drawbacks? There are none. The EL Series putters are available in 36, 38 and 40-inch lengths, 21 head styles and three different finishes. There’s one to fit every players’ eye.
One highly skilled golf associate initially resisted, “My setup will be destroyed by the additional length.”
He owns four wedges and wields each with surgical precision. We laid them on the practice green, side by side. Four wedges, four different club lengths.
“Oh,” was the response we received as he picked up the putter and began holing six footers at will.
Anyone who’s been anchoring their putter needs to take a look at the EL Series putters as well.
The Tour and PGA ruling bodies are both supporting the January 2016 Anchors Aweigh ban and these putters will serve those relying on belly and long models quite nicely. Each of the new styles features a shaft that extends beyond the hands, but does not anchor to the body.
“One reason belly putters became so popular was because the additional grip and shaft materials created a natural back-weight,” says Stephen Boccieri, President and CEO of Boccieri Golf. “Other OEM’s are just now adopting counterweighting while we’ve been refining it for nearly a decade.”
Players who want to make more putts should report to the state-of-the-art Boccieri Golf Research and Performance Center at 15816 North Greenway-Hayden Loop in Scottsdale, just south of the TPC Scottsdale Stadium Course.
The professional staff will put the EL Series putter in your hands to try out. Don’t worry about running out of putting green, it’s a 9,000 square-foot building, full of all the latest swing-analysis technology. You may learn more about how you move a golf club than you ever thought you could absorb.
While you’re there, check out Boccieri Golf’s Secret Grip, endorsed by Jack Nicklaus. Introduced in 2013, the Secret Grip puts the same back-weight secret Nicklaus says he used throughout his career to win 18 professional majors and 73 PGA Tour titles at your disposal.
Simply changing the grips on your full shot clubs will deliver a consistent tempo and shot-dispersion accuracy you probably haven’t experienced before. The 10, 12, 15 yards of additional distance per club is fun too!
Boccieri Golf equipment has played a key role in victories on the PGA, European, Champions, Nationwide, Asian, Canadian and European Challenge Tours. They are happy to help you as well.
Courtesy of Dr. Bob Rotella with Alan Pittman and Golf Digest Magazine
Tournament Players Club of Scottsdale – No. 16 Stadium Course
Don’t Be Seduced By Results – I teach my players to “stay in the present.” How did Trevor Immelman get to the 18th green of the final round of the 2008 Masters and not know where he stood in the field? He refused to allow himself to be seduced by a score, got lost in the process of executing each shot and accepted the result until he ran out of holes.
Sulking Won’t Get You Anything – When things don’t go well, don’t get down. Feeling sorry for yourself or thinking the golf gods have conspired against you means you’re not focused on the next shot. The only thought to allow in your mind is always – what’s the best way to get my ball in the hole?
Beat Them With Patience – In tournament play, the rough is thicker, the pins are tougher and the greens are faster. Each time you feel the urge to make an aggressive play, choose a conservative one. The moment a player becomes impatient, bad things happen; stay patient and let others defeat themselves.
Ignore Unsolicited Swing Advice – Your partner and well-meaning friends will insist on giving you advice. Don’t accept it. In fact, stop them before they can say a word. You’ve prepared to play; commit to your game and stay confident.
Embrace Your Personality – When it’s time to play, dialogue with yourself or socialize with your partner and competitors; it’s up to you. You know what’s best for you, so stick with it throughout the round.
Have A Routine To Lean On – Follow your mental and physical routine on every shot; it’ll keep you focused on your task and nerves won’t have a place in your mind. Doesn’t matter what it is – it’s what you do, so do it every time.
Choose Peace On The Course – Competition causes many to become panicked practicers, over-trainers and swing rebuilders. You enjoy golf, so see the golf course as your sanctuary and not a place to be afraid of messing up.
Prepare With Stroke Play – Gross stroke players can thrive in match play events, match-play players can have mental lapses when they must count them all. Prepare with some stroke play rounds, you’ll be tougher mentally.
Find Someone Who Believes In You – A partner, a friend, a coach, an acquaintance, it doesn’t matter much. What does matter is that you find someone who believes in you, someone who sees you doing things you can’t see yourself doing – yet. Their support provides a foundation for your own self-confidence; no champion arrives alone.
Believe You Can Win – Watch your “them” play. They can hit it farther, they hit it straighter, their bunker play is fantastic, they chip it and putt it better than you do. But choose to believe that if those guys can win, so can you; then get to work improving yourself – the belief is the first step down that path.
Stephen Boccieri’s “ah-ha” moment occurred quite by accident it turns out.
Stephen’s practice putting session was interrupted by a telephone call. He was leaning against his work bench at home, tolerating the delay and putting golf balls one-handed with a putter he’d covered with several layers of lead tape.
Golf is the game Stephen had chosen as a respite from his day job as an engineer with world-wide construction giant Stone and Webster, Inc.
As an engineer and a skilled player, tinkering with his clubs was part of the game’s allure.
Through personal trial and error, Stephen had discovered the additional weight improved his putter’s performance; however he was disappointed his “if some is good, then more is better” lead-tape theory was producing diminishing returns.
“It was pure coincidence that a weight-plug was laying on my bench and was the perfect diameter to slide right into my putter shaft,” Stephen shared. “While I was on the phone, I inserted it, one-handed a couple more putts and then, rather abruptly, ended the telephone call.”
At that moment, the simple science behind the fact Stephen’s club was now easier to move in a predictable and repeatable fashion became very clear to him: the back-weight at the grip end had moved the club’s balance point up the shaft, closer to him.
And moving the balance point closer to the player would add the same reliable performance to irons and drivers as well!
His reaction? Stephen founded Boccieri Golf in 2005.
Fast forward a few years to the practice range at the annual PGA Show in Orlando, Florida, where Boccieri Golf stunned the equipment manufacturing world with Stephen’s revolutionary technology.
The news traveled quickly that competition-savvy professionals were driving the golf ball farther with Stephen’s Boccieri driver than they were with the new Ping®, Taylor Made® and Nike® offerings located alongside.
Remember, the mantra preached by the top-line driver manufacturers in those days proclaimed “a lighter golf club is better golf club because you can swing it faster.” The manufacturers had achieved making their 460-cc clubheads as light as possible by reducing the thickness of the titanium material.
Unfortunately, the competitive long-drive champions testing the drivers on the range were swinging the club so fast, the clubhead literally buckled and collapsed. “I cratered my driver” was a phrase heard regularly among groups of avid players in those days.
When they picked up the Boccieri driver, not noticing its back-weighted grip, the pros assured Stephen they wouldn’t hit too many balls because they didn’t want to “destroy another driver today.”
He told them not to worry and to hit as many drives as they wished. That was the easy part.
Explaining to them how they drove the golf ball farther with the Boccieri driver, and why they could swing a heavier golf club as fast as the lighter drivers they had destroyed earlier in the day was a bit more difficult.
After all, the heavier driver violated every tenet of the “lighter is better” gospel. And to make matters worse, common sense said, “There’s no way I can swing a heavier club as fast as a lighter club.”
That’s the problem with common sense, it’s so easy to embrace and at times, so completely wrong.
Boccieri Golf’s back-weighted product line proves you can swing it faster, if the club’s additional weight is located in precisely the right spot. The facts, rooted in physics and proved with a bit of arithmetic, are quite clear and rather elementary.
It turns out that when a player swings a golf club at any given swing speed, yours or mine, his or hers, the closer you locate the golf club’s balance point to your body’s core, the faster the clubhead will travel.
And the faster swinging clubhead, together with the additional club weight, produces more momentum which is delivered to the golf ball at impact. And when you put more momentum into the golf ball, you get more distance out of it.
These simple facts don’t represent some unique circumstance that requires hours of practice to refine and make happen either.
These things occur anytime something on earth swings, no matter who does the swinging. The likes of Pythagorus, Galileo, Newton and Einstein scrutinized such details years ago, and each of them is on record as satisfied.
Now that Boccieri Golf has made this technology common knowledge in the industry, other major manufacturers are quickly following suit. Although some choose different language to describe the technology, others quote the facts rather directly.
The advertising material for the popular PING® G20™ driver now promotes that “PING’s proprietary high-balance-point-shaft enables you to swing a clubhead with more mass at the same speed, generating fast ball speeds.”
Materials from Fujikura® promote their Blur 005 with TaylorMade® Tip shafts as “designed with a high-balance-point.”
Boccieri Golf Research and Performance Center – 15816 North Greenway-Hayden Loop – Scottsdale AZ
When you are ready to improve your golf game, add “investigate Boccieri Golf Secret Grip” to your to do list. You’ll find a swing tempo, solid ball contact and shot dispersion pattern you probably haven’t experienced before. The extra distance you gain, right through the bag, is fun too.
Do your homework, in person, at the Boccieri Golf Research and Performance Center in Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re located at 15816 North Greenway-Hayden Loop, just south of the Scottsdale TPC.
When you visit, you’ll find a 9,000 square-foot state-of-the-art facility full of all latest swing-analysis equipment and a professional staff who knows how to handle avid players and their equipment.
Don’t be surprised if Stephen, CEO and President of Boccieri Golf, walks up and introduces himself while you’re working with his staff.
He’s always there, apron on, building clubs to order; a hands-on craftsman that values the opportunity to get feedback directly from the players who use his products.
The latest product from Boccieri Golf is revolutionary, indeed: the new Extended Length EL Series putter.
Boccieri Golf has produced the rare combination of stability and consistency in the EL Series putters and delivered to the market the first, true alternative to anchoring.
The EL Series’ slightly longer putter shaft, patented, Tour-proven high mass head and 17″ long counterweighted grip produce the reliable stability of anchoring in a free-swinging putting stroke.
28 models, available in three different finishes and three custom shaft lengths means every player will find an EL Series putter to match his or her eye.
“With this Research and Performance Center,” Stephen shared, “We’ve created a true equipment think tank where creative ideas will flourish and new concepts will be tested and brought to fruition.”
When Sandra, his loving bride and former Broadway theater performer, comes out to collect Stephen and put him back on task, thank him for his diligence and then let him go.
Boccieri equipment is assembled by hand and those clubs won’t build and ship themselves.
Stephen shared, “This facility is an incredible metamorphosis for a company that started in my basement. It’s grown into a true force due to some real persistence, coupled with a revolutionary approach.”
The golf equipment industry has voted and their verdict says this technology is now mainstream.
You can’t go visit with Steve Jobs, Karsten Solheim or several other people who started at home and revolutionized their respective industries.
Stephen Boccieri, however, is front and center every day at Boccieri Golf. When you decide you want to play more enjoyable golf, go see him and his staff. You’ll be glad you did.
Legend Trail is the perfect course to play when you want to savor the unique experience of playing golf in Arizona’s Sonoran desert. Whether you choose the par-72 Black tee “Long Trail” at 6,845 yards, or the 4,910-yard “Short Trail” Sage tees, you will enjoy stunning North Scottsdale picture postcard-type panoramas, excellent Tif-Eagle turf course conditioning and a first-rate Rees Jones layout.
Legend Trail Golf Club – #14 Navajo Tapestry
The fairways at Legend Trail Golf Club are wide and virtually uninterrupted by desert from tee to green. The desert-carries over native plants are mostly limited to the distance between your tee box and the generous fairways in front of you. The tee boxes rise up as grass islands growing out of the dry desert floor. They deliver a surreal experience of feeling marooned in the prickly desert flora, and add to the high-adventure of playing your way through its remarkable arid-lush beauty.
Now be advised, you choose your own tee box for the round, and therefore, the desert-carries you’ll face for the day, so choose wisely. The “Long Trail” is rated 72.3 and carries a healthy 138 slope; it’s a more modest 68.1 and 115 for the “Short Trail”. Four additional sets of tee markers are located between them so everyone can find a comfortable challenge for the day.
But no matter what teeing ground you choose, Legend Trail will perch you high above manicured fairways that seem to go on forever, and elegantly crafted green complexes molded into the natural terrain. And yet, each time you arrive at your ball, if you glance over to survey the fairway’s edge, you will witness just how quickly the pristine golf course turf vanishes and the harsh, natural desert surface returns. In a word: instantly; it’s quite a sight to behold.
Rees Jones’ layout at Legend Trail presents an enjoyable and playable routing up and over this undulating portion of high-desert property in North Scottsdale, and includes a unique combination of back-to-back 5-pars at the 16th and 17th holes – more on those two later.
Legend Trail Golf Club #6 – Painted Desert
A favorite pair on the front-9 starts at the par-4 sixth, playing at just 335 yards. It presents the classic temptation to try and squeeze a bit more distance out of a tee ball than may be safe, accuracy-wise. Desert left and bunkers right narrow the fairway that Mr. Jones decided shouldn’t provide a level lie, anywhere.
The short approach shot, played from an uneven lie, must carry a dry desert arroyo fronting a raised, severely contoured green which wraps around a cavernous front-left bunker. The arroyo and bunker see plenty of action as they collect all the “chunky” second shots those undulating fairway lies produce.
Legend Trail Golf Club #7 – Water Chant
Standing on the seventh tee box, Mr. Jones tempts you with an eminently reachable, 495-yard par-5. He provides a target-bunker at the top corner of the generous, gently sweeping, right-to-left fairway to aim at, and draw your tee ball off of. That will leave you a reasonable hybrid or long-iron second shot to an enormous putting surface, protected by a lake on the left, but wide open on the right side for a run-on shot.
What he doesn’t show you from the tee is the left-side lake guarding the second half of the fairway and green complex, and the fact that it extends back, close enough to the tee, to drown any “gonna go for it in two” tee ball is launched too far left. Rinse one here and this routine birdie hole now looks like a long third shot, over water, to get on in regulation and get out with a well-earned par.
The back-9 at Legend Trail Golf Club is about as good as golf in Arizona gets. The routing, the shot values and the scenery combine for a high energy thrill-ride you won’t soon forget. The crescendo is reached at the 16th and 17th holes, a back-to-back 5-par pairing which can take a good round really low, or destroy 15 holes of solid play.
Legend Trail Golf Club – #16 Echos of Time
The 530-yard 16th plays from an elevated tee, which prominently displays an arroyo cutting across the far end of the fairway lying in the pristine meadow below. Players going for the green in two will carry the arroyo with their tee ball; on-in-regulation players play short.
The small green complex is treacherous. It presents a deep, but narrow putting surface, elevated above the fairway and surrounded by a second arroyo that collects everything that is not precisely on target. It’s a lot easier to find this green with a wedge from short yardage than with a fairway metal from way out; your choice.
The 510-yard par-5 17th, on the other hand, begs to be eagled. The putting surface is much larger here but is segmented into several different tiers. If you’re ‘gonna go for it in 2 anywhere, this is the place. Keep your tee ball in the right-hand side of the fairway and, on approach, avoid the bunker front-left of the green. The right side of the green is wide open so you can run it on if you need to. Skilled players can target the tier the pin is on, the rest of us just try to get it on and consider a putt for eagle, from anywhere on the green, accomplishment enough.
Legend Trail Golf Club is a full service golf facility; practice facilities are state-of-the-art and the pro shop is always full of the latest in equipment and fashion trends.
Legend Trail Golf Club
The John Jacobs – Shelby Futch Golf Academy is located here and provides everything the student-golfer dreams of, from detailed video swing-analysis studios to private swing instruction, short game development to handle the subtleties of the Tif-Eagle surfaces and full playing lessons on the championship layout.
The Hot Stix Golf Performance Center also calls Legend Trail home. As everyone who’s been through the Hot Stix club-fitting procedure knows, the matching of an avid player to both a club and a ball, custom tailored to their game, produces great rewards on the golf course.
Legend Trail Golf Club showcases all the best Arizona golf has to offer, including some “good ’ole western style feudin.” And once you’ve played the 11th hole, you’ll be qualified to join the long-standing local debate. The 2 camps lay out this way: Do we leave the 440-yard par-4, the No. 2 handicap hole on the golf course, as it is, or should we keep the green complex, build new tees at the “corner” and convert it to a long, gorgeous downhill 3-par.
Go play Legend Trail Golf Club, you’ll enjoy the day, and then let us know what you think about the 11th.
Arizona Golf Authority AZGA “Local Hang” for Legend Trail Golf Club is the club’s own Cantina at Legend Trail. The patio offers the perfect spot to enjoy their full menu of refreshments and fare amid the tranquil desert surroundings, and offers the best view in town of Pinnacle Peak’s elegant north face. When you’re ready to two-step with the long-neck beer and cheeseburger crowd, head up the road a piece to Harold’s Cave Creek Corral, located just north of the club in Cave Creek, or the Horny Toad, just down the street from Harold’s, in Cave Creek as well.
Arizona Golf Course Guide’s AZGA Arizona Golf Course Review: When the Raven Golf Club opened for play in 1995, the tectonic plates of the golf landscape in Phoenix shifted forever. Sure, high-quality golf course designs were already scattered around North Scottsdale’s foothills back then, but most were private country clubs designed for the exclusive enjoyment of the members and their lucky guests.
Raven Golf Club – Phoenix
The Raven boldly placed a first-class David Graham – Gary Panks layout right in the heart of Phoenix, then added all the customer service the private places had and offered the experience to daily-fee public players – Home Run.
Not only did the locals flock to the course, but due to its location near Sky Harbor International airport, avid traveling golfers always scheduled it for play on the day they arrived, or the day they were leaving town. Many outfits have copied the formula over the years, but no one in Phoenix does it better than the Raven – Phoenix for two reasons: the golf course, and the staff.
First, the golf course. Wow!
Messrs. Graham and Panks were given a site along Baseline Road in a longstanding agricultural area near South Mountain historically cultivated as flower nurseries; the fields are directly adjacent to a major irrigation canal. They moved some earth, imported 6,000 Georgia Pine trees and produced a spectacular golf course that the editors at GolfWorld included on their 2009 List of the Top 50 Public Courses in the U.S.A and Golf Digest awarded 4.5 of the 5 possible stars they hand out. Trust us; you don’t buy your way into the rankings issued by those two outfits.
The Raven Golf Club – Phoenix is an ever entertaining and playable golf course from the middle tees, while providing a championship caliber test from the tips. At its full 7,078 yardage, the course rating is a healthy 72.8 and slope is 130. Two sets of middle tees offer a more comfortable rating of 70.5/125 from 6,722 yards and 68.1/119 from 6,264. The forward tees are set at 5,759 and the rating creeps back over par at 73/129.
Raven Golf Club – Phoenix is the model for the “member for a day” mantra you hear so often these days. Visit the expansive practice ground to loosen up and don’t be offended if you find the surfaces are better than the fairways you play on at home. Take plenty of time to prepare and be ready to play from the start because a stern 3-hole test appears early on the front-9.
Standing on the 3rd tee you’ll notice two things, a generous pine tree-lined fairway and not a single fairway bunker. You know what that means, and a glance at the tee marker will confirm your suspicion; it’s the strongest par-4 you’ll see all day and, at 477 yards, the No.1 handicap hole on the course. Resign yourself to a longish second and take solace in the fact that the Graham-Nash team provided a bunker-free green complex that accepts a long iron or hybrid shot-trajectory.
Now that your long game has been stretched out, No. 4, a 596-yard par-5 provides another chance to use it. The AZGA staff recommends we amateurs play this one as a three-shotter due to the elevated green complex. Approaching this green with a short iron ensures a more reliable result as deep bunkers menace the right half of this tiered green, both front and rear – sandy birdies are rare here.
The early 3-hole workout culminates at the 6th tee where the designers test another part of your game: your judgment. You’ve just played two holes that suggest “long ball is good” and now they tempt you with their 324-yard drivable par-4. The fairway doglegs sharply left-to-right around a menacing family of bunkers and the multi-tiered green sits just beyond them, tantalizingly exposing its wide but shallow-depth side to you from the tee; the deep long-axis of the green is angled some 60-degrees away from you, in line with the safer, dogleg fairway approach. Carry the bunkers and you’re home free, miss a bit and well, you know the drill. It’s your choice, and therein lies the fun.
The back-9 is a bit shorter and the layout offers several more choices about what shot to hit. Standouts are the 11th and the 15th. Tee boxes at the par-3 11th are placed from 195 to 112 yards and it’s one of the few golf holes where an amateur player might actually, consciously, genuinely reach the following conclusion – “You know, if I miss this green, after looking at the angry ocean-like undulating chipping area over there on the right, that bunker on the left doesn’t look so bad.” They’d be correct, too.
No. 15, a par-4 playing a modest 366 yards, is an elegant eye-candy golf hole disguising an intriguing choice about your tee shot. Challenge and stay short of the bunker, located just 250 yards from the tee and defining the gently sweeping left-to-right dogleg, and you’re left with a level lie and the full depth of a two-tiered, elevated green for your second. Drive your tee ball longer into the generous fairway left of the bunker and you’ll find everything but a level lie, and the green, now diagonal to your line of play, is a very shallow one-club target.
The Raven Golf Club – Phoenix is home to one of those rare golf courses where even if you did reach the milestone of playing every day, you would always be entertained by the course. Each day would bring a little different lie, a different shot angle, or a change in strategy off the tee; that’s the mark of thoughtful design and careful course routing.
And if you do show up every day, rest assured you’ll be in good hands. O.B Sports’ General Manager at the Raven – Phoenix, Derek Crawford, has been doing this for 30-years and he’s distilled the art and science of customer service to its essence.
“It’s simple really; my staff and I do whatever we can to enhance a guest’s experience today. It’s not hard to get over there and open a door for someone whose hands are full, or take a moment to smile and thank them for choosing to come over and play our course. We just believe that, in a world which seems a bit less civil today, the little things we do have a big impact on our guests”
How refreshing.
The Raven Golf Club – Phoenix also offers a well appointed Pro Shop and great food and beverage ambiance in the Raven Grill, as well as complete banquet services in their Event Pavilion overlooking the 18th hole. Expert golf instruction is available from the Jeff Ritter Golf & Martin Chuck Tour Striker Golf Academy.
After golf, as long as you’re in the neighborhood, spend some time and check out two more Phoenix originals. The entrance to South Mountain Park is just down the street, south on Central Avenue, and you can make the short drive up to the 1,000-foot summit for the view; it’s spectacular, day or night.
And if you’re on south Central Avenue, at #8684 you’ll drive right past one of the best meals in town at the family owned and operated restaurant, Los Dos Molinos. Named by Victoria “The Two Grinders” for the chili grinders she and her husband Eddie each received from their grandmothers, this is hand-crafted New Mexico style cuisine presented in a small, homey atmosphere. The food is great because as Victoria says, “There’s no assembly line here, my daughters and I prepare each dish, with one helper at most.”
The Raven Golf Club – Phoenix is another Excellent Arizona Golf Adventure.
