[Tom Yost]

I ended up getting mine with a round at the Raven for $109.  It also includes a subscription to Golf Digest.

Talk about the deal of the century... They paid you 

Savvy shopper!    The downside, I did have to play the Raven (S. Mountain)     

[Andy Troeger]

... The area used to have some kind of Arizona card with like 50 courses on it. It was around $100 at the time and got some pretty significant discounts and could pay for itself within a week easily. The Troon courses weren't on it from what I remember but many of the other nice ones were (Estrella, Gold Canyon, Las Sendas, etc). Does anybody know if this still exists?

There is the SouthWest Section PGA Golf Pass.  $125 if purchased prior to Dec 31.   75 courses on the list with 50% weekday and 25% weekend discount from rack rate, but tee times only 1-3 days in advance, depending on the course.   Many courses were offering a free round with purchase of the pass, I ended up getting mine with a round at the Raven for $109.  It also includes a subscription to Golf Digest.  Doesn't appear that any of the Troon family are on this pass but some pretty good ones including  Apache Stronghold, Estrella, Gold Canyon, Las Sendas, Legend Trail, Raven @ Verrado, Sunridge Canyon,  Trilogy, Wigwam, Wildfire...

Tom

That sounds like the card. We'd go down for a week and play 4 or so courses during the week so it tended to pay for itself by at least the 3rd round. Not a bad list of courses really although I never played the Raven 

[Steve_ Shaffer]

The new Troon North Pinnacle was the first course that I played. As noted, this is the front 9 of the old Pinnacle course. The course opens with 4 par 4s- MacKenzie at 392y is a good opener as it's a fairly wide fairway and the approach is to an elevated green beyond a wash, Bobcat Hill is a 405y with a rolling bunkerless fairway and the approach to the green is over a waste area, Sunset Peak is a 468y from an elevated tee to another bunkerless fairway with the approach to a sloping green protected by 2 bunkers on right, Tomahawk is the next par4 at 416y from al elvated tee  with the approach to the green protected by 2 bunkers on the left. Hole 5, Dos Caminos, is a 541y par5 dogleg left. Hole 6, Carefree,  is a nice 206y par3 with a large deep bunker protecting the left side of the green.Hole 7, Deer Crossing, is a 456y par4 with another bunkerless fairway with the aproach to a diagonal green protected by a large bunker on the right. Hole 8, McDowell Vista, is a 190y par 3 from an elevated tee to the green protected by a long frontal bunker and a large cactus and 2 rear bunkers. Hole 9, Choparosa, is a 404y par 4 dogleg left with one large fairwat bunker on the left. Overall, a good start. As usual, the conditioning of the course was excellent.

I'll get to the back 9 later.

[Tom Yost]

Steve,

Thanks for the review...  waiting to hear about the new Monument layout.  Wasn't that the one that was supposed to benefit the most from the re-routing?  More walker-friendly? 

I like how you are stringing it out to keep us all on the edge waiting for the next update!   

When are you headed back to Philly?


Tom

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Troon North New Pinnacle Back 9:

Rather than do a hole by description, here are the highlights of the back 9, the former back 9 of the old Monument:

Hole 11, a par5 539y dogleg right without any fairway or greenside bunkers.
Hole 13, a par3 177y uphill to a narow green.
Hole 14, a par5609y dogleg right with another narrow green protected  by a bunkers short left and back right.
Hole 15, a par4 371y with the green protected by 2 large bunkers tempting the long hitter to drive the green.
Hole 18, a par4 447y with 2 large fairway bunkers on the right with the the approach to a larger green protected by bunkers on both sides.

The greens must have 12+ on this very windy day making distance control quite difficult.

I'm leaving AZ  soon and haven't played all the courses on my list...yet. Next week, I'll make  another visit to  Legend Trail, one of my favorites in the area.

I'll post my thoughts on the New Pinnacle soon.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Here is Ron Whitten's take on the "new" Troon North:

At Troon North in Scottsdale, officials recently took their 18-year-old Monument Course, a Tom Weiskopf and Jay Morrish design that once ranked among America's 100 Greatest, and swapped one of its nines with that of the 12-year-old Pinnacle Course, a Weiskopf-without-Morrish design. The result: a couple of hybrid "Old Tom Morrish" layouts, each with an older nine that's more concave and forgiving and a newer nine routed on far more severe topography.

Teeing off at 8 a.m., I played the Pinnacle 18 with a threesome in carts. Even with me on foot, we finished in less than four hours. After lunch, I played the Monument, paired with a jolly trio -- a Brit, an Aussie and a Kiwi -- who knew computers but not golf, hitting a house off one tee and searching for golf balls in the brush like a rugby scrum. It was amusing at first but soon became tedious. I never saw a marshal and was forced to move things along myself by letting three groups play through us. We barely finished the 18 at dusk, 5½ hours after we started.

Troon North remains in my mind the first golf destination for any Phoenix tourist. But I'd dock the club half a star because, when it comes to pace of play, it didn't walk the walk.

www.golfdigest.com/courses/2008/05/allstar_phoenix

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

I played the Monument last week with a fun threesome..two of which had alot of time in the brush, but they picked up when they thought they were taking too long.
We played in about 4 hours.
I enjoyed the layout, the houese are close..but that is a sign of the times and at least they were nice to look at.
The transfer from nines was a little clumsy and certainly did not flow, but that did not spoil an otherwise very enjoyable round of golf.

The course was in excellent shpe , the greens a sensible resort speed and very good..the staff super courteous a verp professional operation and a course I would recommend for anybody to play.


A step up was the next day at Desert Forest...wow..what a lay out...superb..one of the enjoyable layout I have played in the deasert.
Good old fashioned golf design, with a desert twist....no gimmicks just great shotmaking golf.

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