- Follow us on:
From our Directory of the most recommended golf courses
Troon North
Revise Course Description
Pace of Play
Greens
Service
Value
Design/Layout
One of the pricier golf course experiences in Phoenix. I think it's a bit overrated since there's so many upscale desert target golf courses around here, but it's the one that started the trend toward the upscale experience. There's two 18 hole courses here, both designed by Tom Weiskopf and Jay Morrish. There were remodeled a couple of years ago, somewhat redesigned to provide a more walkable course by taking some of the holes from both layouts and combining them within the new layouts. Both are routed through the natural ravines and foothills in the high Sonoran desert with views of Pinnacle Peak. The Monument plays from 7070 yards at the rear tees and a 147 slope, the Pinnacle 7025 and the same slope. The Pinnacle can be difficult if you're not on your game, but it's somewhat wide open off the tee, routed through a very upscale residential development, but the houses don't really come into play. Pinnacle has more of a linksy feel than Monument, and is maybe a little more forgiving. Monument is the better course here, it has all of the top golf course ratings, and is more desert target style of golf with a lot of risk/reward type shots. Both courses are always in great condition, and customer service and the restaurant/bar here are like the Ritz Carlton. but you're paying for it. Highly recommended by all the national golf publications.
Published by: peteMcD
Posted by: Top50
Mar 28th, 2012
Your Top 50 rating of Conestoga Golf Club at 8.09 is ludicrous,” writes Gary Van Sickle of Retrograde, Pa. “I’ve gone over the numbers repeatedly and never gotten more than an 8.05. This is a complete travesty -- as opposed to a partial travesty, which no one likes.” The par-3 fifth hole at Conestoga Golf Club: Too isolated? Or perfectly isolated? (John Garrity) I usually dispose of crank e-mails by tapping the garbage-can icon, but something about this particular missive made me hesitate. Then it hit me: Van Sickle is our PGA Tour correspondent and executive director for course rating. So, with a heavy sigh, I re-read his rant and then forwarded it to Y. E. Ying, the Cal Sci “hotshot” who’s been crunching our numbers since Charlie Eppes ran off to Europe with what’s-her-name. “Will check,” Ying texted me back. Two days later, he texted me again. “Van Sickle is correct. Conestoga GC of Mesquite, Nev., scores at 8.05 and should be ranked 55th. No. 50, at 8.09, is Pinnacle Course at Troon North Golf Club, Scottsdale, Az. Sorry. Please excuse error.” Sorry? The Top 50 doesn’t publish apologies! The Top 50 publishes authoritative, 100% confirmed empirical data culled from the golf industry’s most comprehensive course-evaluation protocols. I’d have fired Ying on the spot if I didn’t have to run everything past a bankruptcy judge. Another reader, who calls herself “Anon-a-mouse,” asks if I can tell the difference between closely-ranked courses like Conestoga and Troon North. My honest answer is no. I played Conestoga a few months ago and was blown away by its high-desert beauty. I played Troon North in February (as adjunct faculty at the Tour Tempo VIP School) and was similarly blown away by its high-desert beauty. Conestoga is more rugged and natural, with canyon holes that leave you feeling completely cut off from civilization. Troon’s Pinnacle course is the more difficult to play, with cactus patches that practically gobble up the wandering drive. Ask me which is better, and I can only shrug. That’s why I employ only scientific criteria to rank the world’s courses from top (Askernish Old) to bottom (Ft. Meade City Mobile Home Park Golf Course). That’s why we confidently claim to be “99.9% accurate.” And that’s why we promptly correct the rare error made by a pocket-protector know-it-all who never returns our calls.
John Garrity's top 50
Flag Content
Posted by: al_the_x
Jul 24th, 2010
Troon North is good but pricey... play Pinnacle if you must. They have taken the best of the two original routings and mixed them together. Monument is very "housy." Pinnacle is the true experience you would be looking for (up and down the mountain).
Flag Content
Posted by: EvanH
Mar 29th, 2010
Played the Monument, it is a tough 18. Standing on the tee box at hole one, I was more than a little bit worried about mishitting my drive into one of the million dollar homes which flank the fairway on both sides. As a once a year desert course player, I find it takes me a good three or four holes just to get settled in and not get eaten up by worry. There is a lot of pain awaiting you on this meticulously maintained course if you are not on top of your swing. Bunkers and boulders abound. The desert will swallow an errant ball after first batting it around from cactus rock to cactus. The greens are in excellent shape, but played a bit slower than expected on the day we played. The namesake par five "Monument" hole is a sweeping dogleg left with a massive three-story boulder right smack dab in the middle of the fairway. It a requires quite long drive to play past it or a deft long iron, fairway wood to land at the corner between the Monument and a large swath of ironwood, cactus and other impenetrable desert scrub. Each of the holes are named individually after some characteristic that defines them and planted little seeds of worry in me with names like "Hell Bunker," "Spanish Dagger" and "Illusion." Many of the teeboxes are elevated, giving you a great view of the hole, and of all the trouble available to you, but it is also difficult to tune out some inspiring architecture that borders on the course at every turn. I was struck by how back the future it all was, multimillion dollar homes made to look in the style of Indian stucco dwellings, many incorporating boulders into their organic design, a sea of earth tones with Ferraris in the driveway.
Flag Content