Category: Buckeye

The Buzz: It’s a hike to get to the Raven at Verrado, which is just about your last stop off Interstate 10 as you exit Phoenix en route to Los Angeles. Good thing this Tom Lehman-Jon Fought layout located in the small community of Buckeye is worth the drive. Lehman, the PGA Tour star, and Fought, a former Tour player who once won the U.S. Amateur, built a little linksgolf into this desert beauty on the front nine (keep the ball low) and everything that is Arizona (let ‘er fly) on the back side.

Most golfers always will remember the par-4 13th, which at 300 yards might seem drivable if not for the fact it’s straight up the hill at a 45-degree angle (very steep). But the reality is there’s a little bit of everything built into the Raven at Verrado despite the fact that the back nine is, arguably, better than the front. Then again, that’s the way golf should be as this wonderful property draped over the base of the White Tank Mountains and overlooking downtown Phoenix builds to a crescendo. The Raven at Verrado is the former testing grounds for Caterpillar, and golfers will need to bulldoze their way over the closing stretch to post a respectable number.

Either way – good score/bad score — the Verrado Grill provides the beverages and hospitality to satisfy all comers.

The Buzz: When the new millennium began, there were grandiose development plans for this area, which included more than 10 new golf courses. Most of them were killed or put on indefinite hold by an economic recession in this area known as “Festival” in the foothills of the White Tank Mountains. Today those plans are represented only by Copper Canyon Golf Club at Sun City Festival, which is a 7,000-acre master-planned Del Webb/Pulte Homes community for active adults. Managed by Troon Golf, this 18-hole championship course is open to the public but residents of Sun City developments receive preferred rates and tee times. The course opened in 2007, making it one of the newer layouts in the Valley of the Sun, and was created by the Valley design team of Brian Curley and Lee Schmidt, whose work is well regarded around the world. It is a course defined by pronounced mounding, strategic bunkering, undulating greens, multiple lakes that bring water into play on eight holes, and sweeping mountain vistas provided by the White Tanks west of Phoenix. Four sets of tees play at 6,845, 6,399, 5,945 and 5,208 yards, with a rating of 71.8 and slope of 127 from the back tees.

Fairways are generous enough to make this a player-friendly course for men and women, and there are a nice variety of green complexes, some of which are tiered and some that present difficult up-and-down scenarios on errant approach shots. The first two holes, a pair of short par 4s, are a warm-up for the third, a 457 par 4 that is the No. 1 handicap hole and features two large bunkers along the right side of the fairway and a pot bunker on the front-left of the green.

The par-3 holes are a treat, particularly Nos. 7, 11 and 16. The seventh, at 193 yards, features a free-form bunker with fingers that snakes about 100 yards to the back edge of the green and a pot bunker guards the left side. No. 11 is a chip shot at 163 yards, but a lake stretches along the entire left side and a large, deep bunker guards the left side of the green. The 16th is more demanding at 203 yards with a lake on the right and three massive bunkers guarding the entire right side of the green. The round finishes at a par 557-yard par 5 with a bisected fairways and a narrow approach to a green guarded in front by bunkers left and right.

Practice facilities here are excellent, including a 12-acre, three-tiered, targeted driving range, short-game area with a bunker and a one-acre putting green. Food and refreshments are available at the Festival Snack Bar and at Indigo Grille, which serves up breakfast and lunch and overlooks the course and surrounding mountains.

With its location near Surprise Recreation Center, a Cactus League spring training facility, this is becoming a popular golf venue for Texas Ranges and Kansas City Royals fans.

Because this is a developing area, the course can be a little tricky to find. Here is the simplest route from the metro area: From Loop 101, go west on Bell Road, which becomes Sun Valley Parkway. Continue on Sun Valley for about 10 minutes and turn right to West Desert Vista Boulevard. The golf club is the third complex on the right.