We want to welcome you to the valley of the sun, Phoenix, AZ, on Friday, February 11th. No, not to sit and watch the 150 yard par 3 with 20,000 drunk fans at the Waste Management Phoenix Open (Feb 10-13), but to play golf all day with other (probably drunk) refugees! We have reserved Cave Creek Golf Course from sunup to sundown for a full day of desert golf (but not like that desert golf, Cave Creek is a popular parkland course in north-central Phoenix, where you hopefully won’t lose 14 balls). With a full course rental comes a sliding cost per person scale, the more of you that come, the better the price! Come escape the snow and the cold to a land Peggy Hill once referred to as “a monument to man’s arrogance.”
We also hope to attend the WMPO tournament itself. Saturday? You and 200,000+ of your closest friends? (details TBD, GA tickets are $75 ($50 on Thurs/Sunday)). Some love it, some hate it, but we all agree that attending the WMPO is an experience. One that I think all golf fans should do at least once. (The people watching is unrivaled)
Disclaimer: this is likely the most expensive week/weekend of the year in Phoenix…jump on lodging early, if you can. Yes, this is also Super Bowl weekend and the weekend before Valentine’s Day (bring the SO for a romantic vacation!)
When: Friday February 11, 2022
Where: Cave Creek GC, Phoenix
Cost: TBD (depends on # of attendees) but the target is $200 (for unlimited golf & lunch)
Format: TBD (someone talk shit)
Charity: TBA
If any this sounds intriguing to you please sign up below:
Cave Creek GC is a 1984 Arthur Jack Snyder design for the City of Phoenix that was a landfill reclamation project and the city’s third 18-hole municipal course at that time. It takes its name from the Cave Creek wash that runs through the property, playing alongside several holes.
Surely the defining feature of the course are the greens, which are so wild that when I first played here I legit wondered if they were the result of landfill settling and not deliberate design. Having played more of Snyder’s courses over the years (as well as those of his protégé Forrest Richardson) and having played the course many, many times, I eventually came to understand the strategy of even the wildest of them. Some, like the 11th, are simply sloped, albeit to an almost comical degree for a busy muni course. Other greens have maniacal contour–on 17 (a par 3) the green is blind from the tee and the front of the green is a bowl. There’s a tiny shelf in the back left and the back right of the green actually runs away. The 18th green is more severe than that, with a Biarritz-like swale in the middle dividing a small front shelf and a back portion that is less a shelf than a backboard tilted back toward the middle.
Two of the best holes are those that actually play over the wash–the 11th and 18th, both holes where the more you choose to challenge the wash on your tee shot the more reward you get with a shorter second.
Besides those the standouts are the par 5s, a varied set that all offer chances to score but demand you take risks in order to do so.
In February, (unless something changes with new water rules in effect this year) you can expect dormant rough, but overseeded green and lush fairways and greens, as the aerial shows.
It is an exceedingly walkable course, not flat, but not built on a mountainside either. February in Phoenix is hard to beat. Come out and join the fun!
New Nest Member, live on the other side of North Mountain on central. How can I not commit hard? Looks like plus 1s are welcome, so if we get close to the goal I will make sure I put out the siren. But fine with a batch of tee times.
