Arizona Golf Course Buzz – Arizona Golf Authority Golf Course Guide:
Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore built two terrific layouts for the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community at Talking Stick Golf Club. Due to their location on the reservation, water is plentiful and course conditions are lush and manicured.
The South Course is the pure application of a traditional golf course upon desert land; wide and tree-lined all-turf fairways with rough extend from tee to green. The fairways are routed around bunkers, in the traditional locations, and deliver you to raised and bunkered green complexes. No forced carries over desert or pond here, but to achieve par 71 on the 6,833-yard South Course you might consider a few.
Messrs Crenshaw and Coore created an entirely different experience at the North Course. It’s the same piece of property, same designers, but a completely different type of golf.
The 7,133-yard par 70 North course approximates links golf in the desert. The course is mown tight and the ball runs all over the subtle contours built into the fairways. Don’t be surprised when you find your ball in a bunker you thought you couldn’t reach, or appeared to be nowhere near the spot you landed your ball. The greens take subtle to an even higher level. As your putt loses speed approaching the hole and drifts left or right, just enough to miss, you’ll realize that you need to look a little closer at that next “straight” putt.
Play them both, more that once if you have time, and revel in the rich contrast we so often find in the game called golf.