I am a memeber of Stonehaven Golf Club in Scotland and was looking forward to seeing Greg Normans Stonehaven in Arizona, but it never opened. I kept this article about the course .
Does Anybody in the Scottsdale region now whether there was any scorecards or yardage books printed for this course ?
Brian Ewen
Feb. 22, 2001
It might have been the most short-lived golf course in history and most certainly had the shortest duration of any course with a big-name designer.
Stonehaven, a north Scottsdale course designed by Greg Norman, never opened before the bulldozers moved in and started plowing it under.
Does that mean "The Shark" created a dud?
The answer is no, according to Norman and the new owners of the property that sits just south of Desert Mountain on Cave Creek Road.
Norman's course was designed as a tournament-ready, daily-fee course that would appeal mainly to low handicappers. With only about 50 acres of grassed area, it featured narrow fairways that snaked like ribbons through the desert terrain.
That layout worked in the plans of Lehman Brothers Inc., but it all changed when the property was sold to Discovery Land Co. of San Francisco, which is now building a private golf community.
With a new name, scope and philosophy, Discovery decided it also needed a whole new course on what will be known as Mirabel. The sod from Norman's fairways was stripped off and sold, and bulldozers are transforming it into a more user-friendly course.
"I've always said that, when you design a golf course, you have three primary goals," Norman said in a statement through his course design company.
"First, you have to understand the developer's strategy for the overall development. Second, you have to work with a developer's budget. And finally, you have to work with what Mother Nature gives you. We accomplished all three at Stonehaven, but understand and respect the new owner's change in philosophy."
Discovery has hired Valley course designer Tom Fazio to create its new course. The company has created six golf communities, with Fazio designing five, including Scottsdale's Estancia Club.
Michael Meldman, who heads the company, said the new course will cost double that of Norman's design and his company basically had to start from scratch to build one that will have wider appeal to golfers.
"We immediately thought the value of the real estate would be maximized by the high-end, private-club concept, mostly because of the quality of the land and the extraordinary views," Meldman said.
"The golf course Greg Norman designed would have made a terrific daily-fee course. It would have been a great test of golf with tremendous beauty. However, the private-club concept calls for a different type of golf course."
The 713-acre project, which sits at 3,000 feet, will offer 310 custom homesites ranging from one-half to three acres, and 45 golf villas close to the clubhouse and other amenities. The initial release has 55 homesites ranging from $250,000 to more than $600,000.
The golf club will be an invitation-only, private-equity course with 375 members. Fazio's design calls for a par-71 course that will play at around 7,200 yards from the back tees. Membership fees will be $85,000, with monthly dues of $600 to $650.