Golf Guide: Phoenix - AZ

Flying into Phoenix, Arizona, you look down over the McDowell Mountains, the Tonto National Forest, vast stretches of desert and rocks and numerous patches of brilliant lush grass. These would be the fairways, tees and greens of the close to 250 golf courses in the area known as the Valley of the Sun where golf is green gold.

Days heat up, nights cool down dramatically with mostly sunny days and average temperatures in the 70s. You can be bundled in your fleece at breakfast time, be walking the fairways in shorts at midday and settling down in front of your fireplace at night. But you won't sweat much nor will you need bug spray. This is dry territory with very few flying pests, a land of big skies, giant fingers of the saguaros, jutting up out of the desert scrub, silhouetted against the brilliant morning sunrises and evening sunsets.

Just about all the big-name golf designers have had a hand in creating really fine desert courses here including Jack Nicklaus, Tom Fazio, Bill Coore, Ben Crenshaw, RT Jones and Scott Miller. In Phoenic your only dilemma is deciding which of the many tracks to play.

You could tee up at tracks that host major tournaments like the TPC of Scottsdale's Stadium course, venue for the Waste Management Phoenix Open and Champions Tour Q School events. Or you could play the JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort where the RR Donnelley LPGA Founders Cup is held.

There are superb designer resort tracks includimg The Legacy Golf Resort and Arizona Biltmore and superb courses just outside Phoenix like The Boulders in Carefree, We-Ko-Pa in Fort McDowell and Superstition Mountain.

No doubt about it: Phoenix is go-to place in the southwest for avid golfers.