One of my goals since becoming a PGA Professional has been to not only play more golf but to play in more tournaments. While there’s a big difference between being a golf professional and a professional golfer, I still believe it’s important to be able to play good golf competitively. It also gives you more credibility as an instructor, especially among better players.
At the Chapter Level, that means playing in more of the summer Pro Series Events in the Tucson area, and at the Section Level, that means entering tournaments like the Assistant PGA Professional Championship at We-Ko-Pa Golf Club in Fort McDowell, Arizona.
We-Ko-Pa means “Four Peaks” in Yavapai, which is fitting since the Club’s two courses, Cholla and Saguaro, lie on Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation land that will never be commercially developed. From both courses, you can see the “actual” Four Peaks, the McDowell and Superstition Mountains and, most noticeably, Red Mountain.
Cholla was designed by Scott Miller in 2001 while Saguaro was designed by the internationally-renowned team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw (the 2nd of their courses I’ve played next to Kapalua) and opened for play five years later in 2006. The goal of Saguaro was simple: to provide a completely different look and feel than the already incredibly popular Cholla course.
According to the We-Ko-Pa web site, “the architects of each course were handed approximately 450 acres of undisturbed desert and given complete freedom to create their preferred routing and yardages with one single request: strive to achieve everlasting beauty and create a sporting intrigue!”
On a golf trip from South Carolina, where I was living at the time, to Arizona back in 2009, a buddy of mine and I played Cholla on a recommendation from a friend. It was awesome! Even to this day, we jokingly but lovingly refer to the experience as the “Legend of We-Ko-Pa.” These are as about as good as desert golf courses get. At times you feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere, and that’s because you are.
If you decide to play either of the courses at We-Ko-Pa, do yourself a favor and check out the golf course web site before you go. Not only will it whet your appetite, there are detailed course descriptions, scorecards, and even flyovers of a few select holes.
Saguaro is rated No. 1 in Arizona on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list (Cholla is No. 8) and was ranked 16th on Golf Digest’s list of the “Best in State Rankings” for 2015-2016.
The course plays 6,966 yards from the aptly-named Saguaro Tees to a Par of 71, a course rating of 72.0, and a slope of 137. Here are some of the highlights of the round:
Holes Worth Writing Home About
The best hole on the front nine is also one of the most interesting holes I’ve ever played. It’s a short Par 3 measuring only 137 yards, but it also happens to be the 9th hole. That’s about as long as the hole can be played too. You can’t put the “W” tee markers much farther back.
There are bunkers short right and short left, but the green looks and feels tiny because it sits at an angle. You’ll have a wedge in your hand for sure. Miss it short, and you’re in the bunker. Hit it long, and you could plunk someone sitting out at Grill enjoying their lunch. I guess there are worse places to end up than the sand. The Saguaro course underwent a bunker renovation in 2018, and they’re really fluffy.
Saguaro prides itself on combining “distinctive, desert golf traits with the timeless traditions of golf course design.” This means that several of the green complexes are situated near the teeing ground of the next hole like what you see as you’re making the turn between No. 9 and No. 10. While this makes the course imminently more walkable for some, it also means you need to have the self-awareness to realize if the group ahead of you is teeing of while you’re preparing to hit a chip or a putt. There’s nothing worse than hearing the smash of a driver in the middle of your downswing. I’m speaking from experience.
My favorite hole on the back nine is the 538-yard Par 5 14th. A split fairway off the tee gives you a couple of options: hit it to the wider, more conservative left-hand side, and you give yourself a longer second shot. Hit it to the narrow, more aggressive right-hand side and you give yourself a much shorter approach but at the expense of hitting your tee ball into the desert on the right or the wash area that divides the fairway in two.
Here’s where being able to hit your target really comes into play. There’s no water on Saguaro, but this course doesn’t need it. On your second shot, you can lay-up to a fairway that pinches between two bunkers or try to reach the elevated green with only a couple of bunkers to avoid. Come up a little short, however, and a false front will guide your ball back down below the level of the green surface.
The Bermudagrass greens out here are really good. It might have something to do with the fact that they’re hand-trucked every morning. Talk about a labor of love! Some of these green complexes are really big. The fringes are often very closely mown and are very puttable.
In fact, I recommend it. If your wedge just happens to dig-in just a little too much, the grainy Bermuda will come up and grab you. Some putts are slower than others. You really have to read the grain and the direction in which the grass is growing to get an accurate sense for the proper speed.
Off the tee, the landing areas are incredibly wide on certain holes. Again, this is by design. Saguaro follows the natural movement of the land, and since Coore and Crenshaw didn’t move much dirt, many of the playing corridors are much wider than other target golf courses you’ve probably played. But don’t get confused. This is a still a target golf course, and you’ve got to hit your spots. You’ll be rewarded if you do. There are two short Par 4s on each side, but because there’s only one Par 5 on the back, Par is 71 instead of 72.
Over the two days I was there, my fellow competitors hit their golf balls into the desert on more than one occasion. Unlike La Paloma Country Club where I work, if you miss the fairway, there’s a good chance you can still find your ball and maybe even hit it again, but you may not want to. There’s a bunch of dry, yellow native grass that’s been flattened just off the fairways, and in some cases, the desert brush has been really cleared out. But beware of the of the rocks, those you can and cannot see. They are everywhere. Some of the rocks you can move, and others you can only see after you’ve hit your ball. If you’re one of those golfers who carries a rock club, you’ll be using it more than once. For those who don’t, assess your desert lies very carefully.
Quiet Please…
When we first arrived at the bag drop area, we were quickly shuttled up the hill to our very own private driving range specifically reserved for us during our tournament. But by far the classiest touch was the personalized name placards arranged in alphabetical order! That was cool.
In addition to the privacy of the driving range, short game area, and practice putting green where we were located, there was also a three-hole practice putting green located next to the first tee. This was great! If you’ve ever played in a tournament, you know it’s a great way to calm your nerves or even pass the time while you’re waiting for the groups ahead of you to tee off. It’s not unusual for things to run a little behind.
The backstory of how Coore and Crenshaw ultimately decided to route the course in the way they did is an interesting one. It’s on the individual course web site, but I’ll do my best to paraphrase it here.
Basically, the two men continuously walked the site for two months to locate the most desirable green sites. The routing they chose, a clockwise front-nine loop and counter-clockwise back weaves in and out of the hundreds of saguaro cacti that dominate the site and from which the course derives its name.
On the scorecard, you get a nice combination of short and long Par 4s but look closely at the course map and you’ll notice an interesting collection of four Par 3s running in all four directions of the compass. What’s more, the prevailing southwesterly wind blows across or sideways on a majority of the holes while the course plays in a direction across the natural drainage of the site.
The Coore/Crenshaw design philosophy that the “lay of the land” dictates their end result is none more evident in the fact that they moved less than 25,000 cubic yards of material in order to create the 68 acres of turf grass that ultimately became Saguaro.
Fore!
The best shot of the day came on the Par 3 5th hole. With the pin tucked in the back right quadrant over a bunker, I hit a 7-iron about 171 of the 173 yards needed to get back to the hole into the wind. Ignorance is bliss! I never would have taken such as aggressive line had I known exactly where the pin was located.
There was no room at all, and one of the guys I was playing with hit his ball through the green and into the desert long and right and took a big number. Of course I missed the six-foot putt, but that was only because the grain ate it up, killing the speed. Again, read the grain, and determine the direction the grass is growing in order to dial-in your speed.
While We’re Young
Pace of play is always a huge issue for me, which is why I always include a blurb about it here. No complaints here! Even though we started a little late, we absolutely flew around in about three hours and 50 minutes. Rarely do tournament rounds go that fast. It was nice to be able to get into a bit of a rhythm.