First and foremost... Farrow, you smokin crack again while playing San Marcos?
Are we thinking about the same course? 457 par 4, followed by 461 par 5? It must have drastically improved since I played there 3 years ago... Seriously, I personally thought it was one of the worst courses I have played to date in AZ... yes, I have been fortunate to play alot of "great" AZ courses on a pretty regular basis... But flat, mundane & boring come to mind when one mentions San Marcos to me...
Golf Club of Scottsdale is a fun day on a perfectly manicured links... Good movement in the land, a couple of holes are somewhat forced, but all & all a GREAT addition to the high-end clubs in N. Scottsdale (Desert Mountain, Desert Forest, Mirabel, Troon, Estancia, Silverleaf, etc.) Bill McBride can add more. His nephew is the caddy master... And the HP has finished top club pro @ the PGA Champ. on more than one occasion i.e. he's a stick!
Now to over-rated & waaaaaay over-priced Troon North. First, it has made alot of $$$ and definitely earned a world-reputation by simply being one of the featured courses on the first couple versions of Tiger Woods Golf for Playstation... Sad, but soooo very true. Just ask. Bottom line is the contrasts look cool, whether in person or on Nintendo... And everyone wants to play a course they know from Tiger Woods
Second, I would bet that more than 50% of the high-season rounds are corporate/business rounds. Thus, pretty much a write-off. Same goes for Greyhawk, though I find Greyhawk to be infinitely superior to Troon North... That's how they justify the outrageous fee... and the fact that Scottsdale has more 4 & 5 Star accomodations than any other city in the world... So, you have some ballers in town on a pretty regular basis
I've played them before & since. The only thing that Troon North has, IMHO, is that they have the only public greens that are on par with the finer clubs in N. Scottsdale (with regards to speed and condition, not shaping, contour and fun factors)... In other words, the greens are usually pretty fast, pretty true and generally in great shape...
That's all I have to say about that for the moment. Truth be told, I'm kinda getting tired of target golf and am sooooooo looking forward to late-April in Monterey!