Desert golf
The 25 best courses you can play in Scottsdale
When Scottsdale was incorporated in 1951, the town had no more than 2,000 people. In recent years, however, the greater Phoenix-Scottsdale area has been among the fastest-growing metro areas in the United States. One of the main catalysts for this population boom is the abundance of exceptional golf—there are over 200 courses in the area, making Scottsdale one of the best golf destinations in the U.S.
The desert town is popular with tour pros as well, including Jon Rahm, Wyndham Clark, Max Homa and Joel Dahmen, who all live in the area. If Jupiter, Fla., is home to the most tour players, Scottsdale is a close contender. Hundreds of mini-tour players grind and compete on Scottsdale’s courses in the hopes of joining their accomplished neighbors.
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When you’re planning a golf trip to the Arizona desert, it can be tricky to sift through all of the options and find the best courses. That’s why we’ve created this guide of the 25 best courses you can play in Scottsdale, complete with a 100 Greatest Public member, a famed PGA Tour host and plenty of other must-plays featured on our Best in Arizona list. We also included several hidden gems that are occasionally overlooked given their proximity to the city center but are well worth the short drive.
Scroll on for the complete list of the best courses you can play in Scottsdale. Be sure to click through to each individual course page for bonus photography and reviews from our course panelists. We also encourage you to leave your own ratings on the courses you’ve played … so you can make your case for why a course is worth playing or not.
(Note: It's worth noting that Quintero is about 45 minutes from Scottsdale's airport, so while it may not fit into everyone's itinerary, it's a must-play if you've got the time. If you're able to get to Quintero, it's worth heading another 30 minutes up the road to play Wickenburg Ranch, a current member of our Best in Arizona.)
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From Golf Digest Architecture Editor emeritus Ron Whitten: Every so often I come across a golf hole so compelling that it overshadows my memory of every other hole on the course. The par-5 18th at The Victory at Verrado is such a hole. It’s a dogleg right from the back tee (590 yards) over an irrigation pond (not really in play for big hitters) to a wide diagonal fairway with a rock escarpment on the left. The second shot is uphill to a green that’s tucked into a box canyon and protected front right by boulder outcroppings. It’s an unusual hole visually, the first hole you see driving up the street toward the course entrance, and it sets the tone for this very unusual course that was built partly on the site of an old Caterpillar Tractor testing grounds where operators learned to shove around chunks of rock using D-9 dozers.
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Explore Golf Digest's recently relaunched Places to Play community, where you can add star ratings and reviews for all the courses you play. We've collected tens of thousands of reviews from our course-ranking panelists to deliver a premium experience, which includes experts' opinions, bonus course photography and videos, plus much more. Check it out here!