The Buzz: Welcome to the course that almost became the first Tournament Players Club in PGA Tour history and host site of the annual Phoenix Open, but still turned out to be one of Arizona’s best resort layouts. This course, part of the Pointe Hilton Tapatio Cliffs resort, combines stunning scenery with challenging play and a glimpse of wildlife, including coyote and quail. Bordering the Phoenix Mountain Preserve, with excellent views of Lookout Mountain and Piestewa Peak, it has received a Golf Digest Four Star award for nine consecutive years, and with good reason. In the mid 1980s, PGA Tour commissioner Dean Beman toured the property with legendary designer Pete Dye in search of a TPC home, but then-Phoenix mayor Margaret Hance and a group of environmentalists objected, effectively killing the project. Instead, the TPC course was built in north Scottsdale, becoming the tournament’s home.
Lookout Mountain, which was designed by local architect Bill Johnston, has hosted a Champions Tour event and was the host course of the made-for-TV Skills Challenge for its first three years. Arnold Palmer, Chi Chi Rodriguez, John Daly, Hale Irwin and David Duval are among those who have competed here. Holes are characterized by dramatic elevation changes and golfers are treated to a memorable risk-reward finishing hole with a 510-yard, par-5 to a shallow, island green, where the only entrance point is a 10-yard-wide alley along the left side. If the course isn’t enough to fit your fancy, the resort certainly will. It offers fine dining, lodging, shopping, hiking and horseback riding without leaving the grounds.
The 19th hole actually is the Pointe in Tyme Bar and Grill, a steakhouse with homemade marinades and rubs and seasonal entrees. The short rib pot roast and grilled Atlantic salmon are excellent. Dinner is a special treat with upscale cuisine at the renowned Different Pointe of View, which sits on a mountain top and offers views from the restaurant and fireplace overlook of desert landscape and city lights that are unmatched in the Phoenix area.