Category: Peoria

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Central Arizona Peoria

Westbrook Village Vistas Golf Course

Arizona Golf AZGA Buzz: The Vistas Course, the second layout at Westbrook Village, provides a nice contrast to the original Lakes Course at Westbrook Village Golf Club. Ken Kavanaugh, a Tucson-based course architect, delivered the enjoyable links-style Vistas Course in 1990, opening roughly10 years after the Lakes Course, designed by Ted Robinson.

The Vistas Course is longer but more open, giving players the opportunity to be a little more free-wheeling in their shot selection, and perhaps take a more aggressive approach to attacking this second Westbrook Village offering.

Vistas has four sets of tees at 6,432, 6,023, 5,704 and 5,333 yards and, depending on which you choose, plays to par 73 or 72. It is rated at 70.0 with a slope of 120, which indicates that it is slightly easier than the Lakes layout.

The signature hole is the fifth, a short 487-yard par 5, but with a long approach shot over a lake if you go for it in 2 shots.

The 17th, although ranked as the No. 2 handicap hole, may well be the toughest. The demons at this 529-yard par 5 are bunkers, artfully placed to grab slightly mishit shots and dash your birdie hopes.

The fully stocked pro shop, locker rooms, all-turf practice facilities and full-service restaurant make The Vistas Course a pleasant play. The onsite Links Neighborhood Grill serves up lunch and dinner, with a wide variety of menu items.

The Vistas Course, and nearby Lakes Course, are part of the Westbrook Village master-planned community for active adults that has nearly 4,000 homes and provides many facilities and amenities to residents. The courses are semi-private and offer various perks and discounts to members, but are always open to public play.

Westbrook Village residents enjoy 2 recreation centers with swimming pools, tennis, a fitness center, arts and crafts rooms, auditoriums, a library and media center, and several social clubs.

These courses also are close to baseball spring training facilities and are quite popular for fans and team personnel in the winter and spring seasons.

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Central Arizona Peoria

Westbrook Village Lakes Golf Course

Arizona Golf AZGA Buzz: The Lakes Course is the original course at Westbrook Village, a semi-private club that welcomes public play and offers two distinct 18-hole championship courses.

The Lakes Course, designed by Ted Robinson, opened in 1980. The Vistas Course, a sister facility nearby, was designed by Ken Kavanaugh and opened 10 years later. They are part of the overall Westbrook Village master-planned community for active adults, which offers many facilities and amenities amidst nearly 4,000 homes.

The Lakes Course is a traditional design with mature landscape and trees accented by water hazards, bringing water into play on six holes, and strategic bunkering; it offers a nice contrast to the Vistas Course, which is more of a links-style layout.

Lakes plays to par-71 with four sets of tees at 6,366, 6,003, 5,708 and 5,333 yards, making it the shorter of the two, although it also plays a whole lot tighter. It is rated at 70.3 with a slope of 123 and has back-to-back signature holes, which make for an exciting finish to your first round here.

If, on the other hand, you’ve played here before these two golf holes torment you from the time you unload your clubs in the parking lot as one of the toughest finishing stretches in Arizona.

The 17th is a 183-yard par 3 that requires a full-carry tee shot over water and the vertical face of the retaining wall separating the green from the lake. The only run-on option here is a well played right-to-left runner; bunkers and mounding around the green complicate the execution of that shot.

The 18th demands a choice early: two shots or three to reach the green? The dogleg-right par-5 of 530 yards is certainly reachable but a two-shot plan requires flirting with the water running along the right side of the fairway and through the corner.

The green is elevated, severely tiered and fronted by the same water hazard that compromised the inside corner of the dogleg in the fairway. A front pin on this green is terrifying; short in the water’s no good, and anything above the cup is unlikely to be holed.

Play these two finishers well and life seems so good; spoil a good looking card at 17 and 18 and, well, you’ll join the tormented parking lot veterans mentioned above; it’s a big group.

The Lakes Course pro shop is well stocked, locker rooms and full practice facilities are pleasantly generous and a full-service bar and restaurant completes the package. The Sunset Bistro at the Lakes Course serves up lunch and dinner daily, with a wide variety of menu items, and Sunday breakfast.

Members here receive various playing privileges and discounts, and Westbrook Village residents have access to two recreation centers with swimming pools, tennis, a fitness center, arts and crafts rooms, auditoriums, a library and media center, and social clubs.

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Central Arizona Peoria

Trilogy at Vistancia Golf Club

Hole #4 at Trilogy at Vistancia in Peoria, Arizona
Hole #4 at Trilogy at Vistancia

The Buzz: We can, and will, tell you plenty more, but here is all you really need to know about Trilogy at Vistancia: In 2009, it was the only public golf course in Arizona to receive a 5-star rating from Golf Digest, which is considered the utmost authority in that regard. The designation is determined by combining the opinions of official Golf Digest raters with those of the golfing public. How does the magazine define 5-star? “Superb. Golf at its absolute best. Pay any price to play at least once in your life.” Just 23 courses received that ranking in 2010, including the likes of Pebble Beach, Bethpage Black, Bandon Dunes and TPC Sawgrass. Need we say more? Probably not, but with this course there is plenty to discuss.

Hole #4 at Trilogy at Vistancia in Peoria, Arizona
Hole #4 at Trilogy at Vistancia

The par-72 layout, which plays at 7,259 yards from the tips, is among about 20 designed in Arizona by Gary Panks but the only one to be inspired by a hunting trip. During that trip to southeastern Arizona, near the Chiracahua Mountains, Panks found a blend of blue gramma, weeping love and sand-drop grasses he had planted at Vistancia to perfectly accentuate the rolling terrain and sprawling White Tank Mountains in the distance. “Our philosophy was to create a marriage of 18 holes with their desert surroundings,” Panks said. “Here, I think golfers find the game is highly visual as well as satisfying.” The long, wispy grasses in the rough and transition areas bring a Scottish look and feel to the course that is obviously one of Panks’ finest efforts because it combines quality design – one that offers playability and tournament toughness — with picturesque surroundings and in a way that preserves the natural values of the property.

Vistancia, the centerpiece of a 7,100-acre master-planned community, features more than 70 bunkers, an unusually high number for a Panks design, but they are strategic rather than the type of endless bunkering that can turn a golf round into a nightmare. Adding to its appeal is a classic finishing stretch with four of the last five holes offering potential birdies. That includes two par-5s that are reachable in 2 shots, a drivable par-4 and a picturesque par-3 protected by a small lake on the right front. Typical of the added touches is the fifth hole, the longest on the course at 597 yards, where a sculpted mound near the front of the green perfectly mimics the mountain that serves as the backdrop. “We didn’t try to do anything tricky with the design,” Panks said. “I don’t like making people guess — just present a target and let them go after it whatever way they feel is best.

If you play the proper tees, anyone can have a good time on this course.” Trust Panks and Golf Digest on this one. They both made the right calls.

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Central Arizona Peoria

Quintero Golf Club

Quintero-Golf-Club-photo

Arizona Golf Course Reviews – Quintero Golf Club: Nestled in n the Hieroglyphic Mountains just west of Phoenix, Quintero has garnered several awards in its short history, and deservedly so. This place was created as the ultimate dream of wealthy Ford dealer Gary McClung and his wife, Lea, and they didn’t cut corners. Unfortunately, their vision ran headlong into a failing economy and Quintero, like many other terrific golf properties at the time, ended up in receivership late in 2010.

Fortunately, for daily fee club player, Quintero Golf Club is now a semi-private operation and available to everybody. The gorgeous Founders Course designed by Rees Jones and the exquisite clubhouse designed by Bing Hu remain intact. Now managed by Troon Golf, this facility ranks as one of the crown jewels of golf in Arizona.

Quintero-Golf-Club-photo

Plans for a sister course by Greg Norman were put on hold several years ago, but even it never happens, this layout will work just fine as an only-child. Jones’ design can be a beast from the tips at 7,208 yards with a rating of 74.9 and slope of 147, but there are as many as nine sets of tees on some holes, so golfers are able to lighten the load considerably. The course borders hundreds of acres of protected desert wilderness in the high Sonoran Desert near Lake Pleasant and was created as a low-density property, so it maintains a secluded feel.

Gently rolling greens, bowl-shaped fairways and deeply taxing bunkers accentuate the course that has some of the best par-3 holes in the state. Simply put, there are no bad holes here, and that’s not a cliché in this case. Among the crème de la crème is the par-4 fourth at 460 yards from the tips with a slight dogleg left, protected by water along the left side. A desert ravine runs the width of the fairway about 120 yards out, forcing you to make a decision between driver and layup club off the tee. The green is guarded by bunkers on the right and desert on the left. It is a wonderfully strategic hole and typical of what you will find here.

One of Jones’ favorites is the eighth, a 586-yard par 5 with an uphill dogleg right heavily guarded by cross bunkers. The visual line off the tee is partially obscured by desert and the next two shots are uphill with bunkers on the right to an elevated green. Back nine gems include the par-5 14th at 552 yards to another uphill green guarded by bunkers on both sides and the 16th, a breathtaking par 3 at 201 yards with a 60-foot elevation drop and bunkers lining the right side.

Tee it up at Quintero the first chance you get because no one knows how long the semi-private status will remain in effect. Once you do, you’ll find yourself returning again and again – it’s that good!

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Central Arizona Peoria

Peoria Pines Golf Course

The Buzz: Featuring 2 full-blown par-5 holes, Peoria Pines is a neighborhood power-executive course that can entertain any avid golfer, novice and veteran alike. The golf course layout packages 5 par-4’s and 11 par-3’s together with the 527 and 510-yard par 5 holes for a complete 18-hole challenge.

It’s 4,412-yards of pine trees, bunkers and water hazards that will test every club in your bag – putter included – as several greens are multi-level putting surfaces. Three sets of tees provide different tests from 3,341 through 4,412-yards; from the tips the course is rated at 61.1, the slope is an even 100.

Peoria Pines features a natural grass practice range, bunkers, chipping and putting greens, as well as full service restaurant and banquet facilities.