Scottsdale National Golf Club Golf Course Review

The Scottsdale National Golf Club can be described as a homage to the classic Old West school of architecture and it boasts its cowboy-casual atmosphere everywhere, from its clubhouse to the finishing holes. The golf course sits on an ideal piece of real estate upon the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, where distant mountain ranges and cactus studded hillsides make for an epic scenery, if it ever was one. The course design wears the signature of a duo of architects, as it was a co-op job between golf-architect Jay Morish and his design partner Dick Bailey. The golf course at Scottsdale National became an instant success, as it was built and designed to offer the purest golfing experience possible. Actually, the layout, the routing and the overall design were so good, that the renowned golf publication Golf Digest put the golf course at Scottsdale National in its Top Ten Best Private New Courses almost instantly. Obviously, the Scottsdale National is a private golf resort, available just for its members and their guests, so keep that in mind if you intend to pay a visit here anytime soon.

The course features 7561 yards of golf from its longest tees and the best thing about building a golf course in the desert is the fact that you dont have to worry about real-estate development. Basically, the architects were given a free hand while developing this beautiful course in a desert-secluded setting, surrounded by thousands and thousands of acres of pristine wilderness. Whilst the Scottsdale National was built unencumbered by real-estate issues, the design was made under the assumption that the clubs membership is composed from mostly low handicap players, i.e. the holes will demand both precise execution and good thinking and the course really offers a plethora of risk-reward choices. Even if there are no water hazards, the architects used masterfully the desert and washes for creating angles which promote hitting the ball to the proper side of the fairways for approaches into the multi tiered, firm and quite fast greens. There are also elevation changes which add to the flavor, making for the Scottsdale National golf course a real special place.