Best of the New?

by Victor Williams

Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore have done it again at We-Ko-Pa with their linksy Saguaro course.

“Hey, this is like a Bandon hole in the middle of the desert,” said one FG visitor on the tee at No. 7, the second of four outstanding short 4-pars at We-Ko-Pa’s new Saguaro Course. “It just has that feel of belonging here.”

And that’s the point, isn’t it? We’re talking Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore, aren’t we? The minimalist-naturalist design pair of Bandon Trails, Sand Hills and Friar’s Head fame, who never met a challenging slab of earth they didn’t like, and certainly would never tread with anything less than reverence for what the good Lord hath rendered, whether it’s salty seaside scrubland in Southern Oregon or a saguaro-studded alluvial extremity in the Sonoran southwest?

And it turns out that ol’ C&C have done it again: Sculpted a masterpiece redolent of linksland, though there’s none to be found for, oh, six or seven hundred miles. FG was so over-the-moon for Saguaro’s layout, conditioning and home-free setting among the red-soaked hills of Fountain Valley, Ariz., that it immediately jumped into our Top 10, right up there with the Bandon and Pebble Beach trios. Is it the best new resort course to open in the West in the past year? As they say at the Yavapai tribe’s Fort McDowell Casino just down the road — especially if you’re holding a pair of face cards — “That’s a safe bet, sir.”

We’re of a mind that it also surpasses its 6-year-old sibling, Scott Miller’s Cholla Course, which racked up raves of its own after its 2001 debut and made FG’s Signature Series Top 10 last year. A few locals we talked to still prefer Cholla for its longer distance from the tips (which most folks shouldn’t play anyway) and its unencumbered views of surrounding peaks, but we think they — and any visitor who ventures to this outpost a good 40 minutes from Phoenix’s Sky Harbor — will eventually fall into our camp.

The reasons are clear from the very first tee, which invites a swing-for-the-fences blow to a fairway that’s at least 80 yards wide, a Crenshaw-Coore trademark owing to Gentle Ben’s occasional wildness off the tee during his 30-year PGA Tour career — and his love of Augusta National, where he notched two Masters wins.

First off, it’s obvious the design pair moved as little dirt as possible, laying those broad driving lanes over the dramatic but not extreme topography with a balanced, delicate hand. “This piece of land has some very interesting natural movement to it,” says Crenshaw on We-Ko-Pa’s website. “I think this golf course will be pretty unique for the desert. People will be induced to play different shots and find solutions to new challenges when playing this course.”

That brings up Reason No. 2: An overall strategic approach you don’t often find on desert courses. Since the Yavapai Tribe has ample water rights for the huge aquifer underneath Fountain Hills (symbolized by a 50-foot-high geyser, powered by German pumps, that you can see from several spots on the course), there’s plenty of breathing room, a.k.a. grass, out there, and it’s lush. Not that there aren’t forced carries over native flora — including many a majestic, prickly 20-foot-high saguaro cactus. That’s an intrinsic part of the modern desert game. But negotiate them and the generosity of playable real estate feels Augusta-like, sans azaleas and pine straw. And at least for now, with only a couple months of play behind it, Saguaro is nearly flawless in look and feel, particularly on the greens, most of which are on the large side. Once they mature and speed up, watch out — that’s where this relatively short track (6,912 from the tips, 6,603 from the blues and 6,252 from the whites) will show its teeth.

“This summer, when the Bermuda grass speeds up, will really bring out the course’s difficulty,” says Kris Strauss of Scottsdale-based OB Sports, which manages We-Ko-Pa’s courses. “We think it will end up being one of the more stern tests in the region.”

Angles of attack are important here, and on the handful of sub-300-yard 4-pars, the closer you get to the green, the tougher the approach. No. 7 is among the most brilliantly designed risk-reward holes, with a perfectly placed pot bunker about 65 yards short of the green. At No. 10, a nuked downhill drive might find the horseshoe-shaped putting surface, but if you’re on the wrong side of a thumb-shaped bunker, you’ll have to putt 90 degrees away from the hole or risk a Mickelson-like pitch.

Other holes jump out and stick in the memory like a buried eagle putt: The beastly but beautiful par-5 No. 4, which stretches 631 from the way backs; the pretty little par 3 that closes out the front nine, framed by an under-construction mini-clubhouse whose architecture echoes that of the spectacular Frank Lloyd Wright-ish main clubhouse; No. 14, a split-fairway par 5 that’s so much fun, there oughta be law against it; and the finisher, nearly 500 yards of fiery par-4 fury, with a big blend-into-the-desert bunker (another Crenshaw-Coore calling card) down the right side. It’s instantly one of the toughest wrappers in the West.

Finally, what makes Saguaro so satisfying is its peaceful place among the otherwise violent desert landscape. As with Cholla, never will a home or other structure sully the views and expansive setting. A few reservation residences nudge up to its perimeter, but overall, the Yavapai have a second huge hit on their hands, putting We-Ko-Pa firmly in the Phoenix-Scottsdale must-play firmament. And in Crenshaw and Coore, they found just the right pair to give it that certain Bandon mojo.

What’s even better is that with summer on the horizon, rates are exceptionally affordable, kicking up the value factor another notch. While it costs $160 visitors and $85 for locals through April 29, the greens fees drop to $105 and $60 for the month of May — and get even better when the real heat arrives. FG

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