Wildfire GC (Faldo), Phoenix, AZ -- Photo Tour (front nine posted)

[Matthew Petersen]

The creatively-named "Faldo" course at Wildfire GC in Phoenix isn't one of the better-known resort offerings in the Valley of the Sun, but for my money it is one of the most unique courses in the area and deserves more attention than it gets.

The course is part of the JW Marriott Desert Ridge resort in north Phoenix--a very nice resort that no doubt suffers for having neither a Scottsdale address nor the more mountainous north Scottsdale topography. In fact, the resort and both courses around it (and everything else for a number of miles in any direction) is as flat as it gets.

The course opened in 2002 as the resort's second course. An Arnold Palmer-designed layout was built there five years earlier. Ten years ago when the Faldo course opened, there was nothing much around this area but the resort. Now homes surround the original Palmer course, a huge outdoor mall sits immediately south of the resort, and condos are encroaching on the Faldo course. C'est la vie. For the most part, happily (and for now but probably not for long), most of the holes on the Faldo course still feel very open with nice long views of the mountains in most every direction.

Though it is known as the "Faldo" course, as with many (all? most?) of the courses attributed to Sir Nick, the Schmidt-Curley firm was the architect behind the big name player.

***

In this era of bigger-is-better courses and resorts that feel the need to torture their guests with Tour-level tests, the Wildfire Faldo course is a mere par 71, 6846 yards from the tips (see the scorecard pic below for yardages and rating/slope from the other tees).

As I said, the course is unlike most others in the area, and per the web site for Faldo design that was the intent:

A rugged sand belt-style desert golf course

The ‘Faldo Championship’ Course at the Wildfire Golf Club opened in 2002 and offers a very different challenge from the club’s older sister course designed by Arnold Palmer.

Faldo's thoughts:

“We wanted to create a layout that was unlike anything else that existed in the Phoenix region and I think anyone who plays here will agree that we have succeeded in doing exactly that. Featuring more than a hundred bunkers but very few water hazards, our design theme has produced a course that looks and plays in a manner reminiscent of Australia’s sand-belt courses. The surrounding scenery, however, is classic Arizona, with its ancient cacti and stunning mountain backdrop. I’m confident that our layout at Desert Ridge will inspire all golfers to bring out the very best game in their game.”

Not to get too cozy with the PR material, but overall the hype here is right. Though certainly the desert comes into play, the course is not a typical desert target golf course at all. No water comes into play and the dominant feature of the course, without a doubt, is the bunkering.

Now for the tour ...

[Matthew Petersen]

Layout



The Faldo course is marked with purple numbers. Note that the first hole is actually several hundred yards from the clubhouse. I have only ever played the course in the summer and I don't know if walking is allowed, but beyond the distance from the range to the first tee the course would be very walkable (particularly the back nine where many holes have tees just steps from the previous green).

Scorecard

[Matthew Petersen]

***

Yardages are given from the back two sets of tees, black (6846) and gray (6615)

Hole 1, par 4, 411/395



The first is a dogleg left where the player can choose how much they want to challenge the left side to shorten the hole. At the same time, the green opens up more from the right side of the fairway so challenging the bunkers on the right could provide a better angle. Long players could run through the fairway if they aim too far right. On my most recent trip around this course I hit a pull that I figured would be in the left bunker but just cleared it and left me just 100 yards in (ie, it's better to be lucky than good).

Tee shot


View from about 150 out. If you hit your drive right at the right edge of the farther bunker on the right, you would be on this line. You can see how coming in from the right is preferrable with all the trouble to the left of this green.


Photo from right of the green shows there's plenty of room to miss over here. This is a big, flat green. There's not much movement in the greens on the Faldo course.


View from behind the green looking back down the hole. As with most holes here, most of the bunkers seem to disappear once you're past them.



Hole 2, par 4, 408/402 (white tees play at 350, in my experience the gray tees are more often set at this distance as well)



A common theme for tee shots on the Faldo course is that the further back you play, the more of an angle will factor into your tee shot. This is not a long course at all from the tips and you can hit driver on most of the holes but you will have your view obscured, face more of an angle, and generally have to work harder to pick a proper line the farther back you play.

From the back tee at the second, you almost don't even see that the hole plays to a split fairway. Even if you could see it, the play to the lower right hand portion of the fairway would be quite awkward (this isn't too big a deal because the better player teeing it up back here should want and be able to carry the cross bunkers to find the upper left hand side of the fairway anyway. From here you really have to pick your line. It's very easy to run through the fairway if you play too far left on this relatively short hole. At the same time you want to have enough club to clear the bunkers.



From the more forward tee, the right side of the hole really opens up. A tee shot to the right hand side of the fairway from this tee box is not intimidating (though the approach certainly is) as it does not have to clear those deep center-line bunkers.



From about 100 yards out on the left side of the fairway you get a view of almost the entire green (the hole location in this photo is as far back left as it can be).



While a similar-distance shot from the lower right-hand side is not nearly as inviting.



From right and short of the green. You don't want to be in this bunker.



From right of the green. The second may be the most sloping green on the course. The big ridge runs through the middle. The green is typically back-to-front sloping for anything short of the ridge. Anything on the other side runs off to the right. Presumably you could use this slope to help get a shot back to a back-right hole location but since most approaches here are going to be with short irons or wedges I doubt that strategy is employed too often.




Hole 3, par 3, 164/155



A short par 3 to a small, flat green. The key here as always is to find the putting surface. Deep bunkers protect front left and front right.



From right of the green you can see another bunker that protects long right, and the slope falling away from the green on this side. This is the place to miss, if you don't hit the green.



The green has some subtle waves but is generally flat.



The big key, that is hard to discern from the tee, is that left on this hole is dead. The picture is taken from just over the front left bunker. Anything left of the green is going to be in the desert, at the base of a rock retaining wall some five feet below the level of the green.

[Matthew Petersen]

Hole 4, par 4, 452/434



The only long par 4 on the front nine, again playing right-to-left. A good drive challenging the left side will both shorten the hole and provide the best angle to the slightly elevated green. There is plenty of room to play safe to the right, but that can make the hole very long.

Again from the back tee, the full width of the fairway is obscured, and the angle of the dogleg is most extreme from back here. The ideal drive is a draw between the bunkers. There's room to find grass left of the bunker but not as much as it appears here, and a drive there could be blocked from the green by trees and bushes.



Move one tee up and the angle of the dogleg is reduced. Now a good, straight drive can split the fairway bunkers to find the ideal position. This tee also gives more of a sense of how much room you have to the right.



The approach from the middle of the fairway, about 175y out. The cross bunkers on the left could mean the high-handicap player has to decide whether he can go at the green with his second or if he needs to lay back of them. For the better player they don't factor into strategy as much, but they do create a bit of an optical illusion.



About 100y short of the green.



Short right of the green. I didn't get a good picture of this green but you can get a sense from this photo. The green has very little internal contour but does have a notable back-to-front slope.




Hole 5, par 4, 389/380



The drive from all but the forward tees is over a wash to a fairway that narrows the further you go. The smart play is to lay up short of where the big bunker on the left encroaches on the fairway, but a bold drive that threads the needle is rewarded with a shorter approach shot to a long but skinny green.



The rectangular green has bunker right, left, and behind. A ridge divide front and back but there's not much other movement. The green is wide open in front and could accept a running shot ... if the course were maintained that way. I;ve only ever played here in the summer, at which time the course often seems over-watered in an effort to stay green. Don't know if it is more firm in the winter months or not, but many of the holes seem to have been desigmned with the ground game as a viable option so it's a shame if it is not.




Hole 6, par 4, 350/341



The sixth plays directly back down the way we just played up from the fifth (the holes share a fairway bunker or two and some rough ... it would be interesting if they cut the entire area as fairway). This is a short hole that asks for a lay-up drive that avoids any of the bunkers and that leaves you a comfortable distance for a short iron or wedge to a very shallow green on the opposite side of a wash.

The green at 6 is not deep but is very wide. The flag visible in this picture (over the left edge of the right-side fairway bunker) is at the far right of the green. the left edge extends about as far as the line of the palm trees in the distance. When the hole is on the left side, the hole plays almost dead straight. But when it's on the right as in this picture, the hole almost plays as a slight dogleg and the fact that you can see the flag from the tee creates a line of charm temptation for the player. Realistically, there is no good reason to challenge the right side. There's the deep fairway bunker over there and out of bounds right of it. You don't get a better angle, either. Still, I have fallen victim to this temptation several times and watched others do the same (essentially unwittingly).



Here's a view of the second shot to a right-side hole location. Again the left edge of the green is probably out of the picture here. The second shot is just a wedge but must carry a wash and intimidating front bunkers. Because it is so shallow, and because the front bunkers are pushed up just slightly, none of the putting surface is visible from the fairway.
 


A view of the green from the right side. You can see how shallow it is. A ridge divides the right and left side, and there's some slight back-to-front tilt. It's not easy to keep a bunker shot from the front bunkers on this green, and in that case the slope is working with you. It must be nearly impossible to keep a shot from the back bunkers on the putting surface.

I like this hole. It's sneaky hard. You look at the yardage and the wide fairway, but the second shot is a real challenge. You can certainly make birdie here with a good approach, but a big number is in play too.

[Matthew Petersen]

Hole 7, par 3, 220/210



A long, nondescript par 3. The green is open in front but there's a pretty significant upward slope right in front of the green so even in firm conditions it would be tough to run a shot on. The bunkering on this hole is a little odd as well. I like the bunker right of the green, which looks to be greenside from the tee but is actually well short of it. But what's with that huge complex on the left that muist extend some 30 yards to the left of where the green's edge is?



From right of the green you see, surprisingly, that this is one of the more sloping greens at the Faldo course. Given the length of this hole, you could end up with a putt that has some decent waves to traverse.




Hole 8, par 4, 341/323



One of two potentially driveable par 4s on the course. This would be the more difficult of the two to reach with a tee shot, but I'm not sure if it's more difficult overall.

To drive the green here you would almost certainly need to carry your tee ball all the way to the green, because with the pshed up round bunker right in front there's just no way you could expect your ball to run onto the green.

If you're not going to pull driver, there is still some interest on the tee shot. There's plenty of room for a 180 yard shot to the left side that stays short of the bunker over there. That's very safe but leaves the most difficult approach to most hole positions. A 200-230 yard drive that challenges the right side and the long bunker that runs along there would leave a much better angle to most portions of the green.



Another of the more interesting greens on the course, this one has several distinct sections. From 100y out you can see all of the front section. The flag you see here is for a back left position, and there's a back right portion of the green in a little hollow as well. This picture is from the left-center of the fairway. as you can see with the back left pin, being further right in the fairway would be preferred.



From right of the green you can see the slope of the little bowl that makes up the back-right portion of the green.



Photo from behind the green again shows how the bunkers disappear once you're beyond them. Also show just what a small little shelf the back left portion of the green is. Everything over that ridge that comes in from the bunker left (on the right side in this picture) runs away, so  you have to play something with some very clever bounce and spin to get close to such a hole. Or just play to the right of it and putt up the slope.




Hole 9, par 5, 534/522



The front nine concludes with the first par 5. This hole is certainly reachable, but you'll need a long drive and a lot of confidence in your long/iron/hybrid/fairway wood. If you don't plan on trying to get home in two then there's little reason to hit driver off the tee since you will be laying up short of a wash that crosses in front of the green. Not hitting driver will probably take the fairway bunkers out of play as well, and make this a pretty wide fairway.

If you do hit driver, you'll have fairway bunkers right and left to contend with. Though the tee is offset in a way that makes a right-to-left shot look more natural (and certainly works, if you have it), the right fairway bunker is short of the two on the left, so in fact a left-to-right drive opens up the fairway a bit as well.



From about 220 you have to make a decision. There's the wash in front of the green and then a deep bunker directly in front as well. The green is relatively shallow as well so even if you can carry it all the way there you need to be able to stop it as well. There's also a finger of farway to the left of that big front bunker. If you can carry the wash but don't want to take on that bunker, this is a reasonable lay-up that would certainly leave an easier third than from short of the wash. More often I suspect it's found by players who are going for it but come over the top and pull their shot left.



From the end of the fairway. Note how the wash makes an interesting hazard. Hit it in here and it might disappear in a bush or in a rabbit hole, or it might nestle up in the deep vegetation next to the rock retaining wall, leaving you virtually no shot. On the other hand you might find your ball laying in the open desert. The wash plays as a hazard but recovery from it is entirely possible.



From left of the green. This is the tongue of fairway that serves as an alternate lay-up route (or savior for the pulled attempt at heroics).



From behind the green, looking back down the fairway.



From the same spot as the previous picture, but looking down the length of the 18th hole. The right edge of the 9th green is in the foreground.



I'll try to put up the back 9 next week.

[Andy Hughes]

Matthew, what ever happened to the back nine? 

[Matthew Petersen]

Matthew, what ever happened to the back nine? 

A good question. I'll see if I can get those photos uploaded.

[Jason Topp]

Matthew - this is a terrific tour from someone who clearly knows the course well.  It the valley effect strong on this course?  That could be a decent explanation for the flat greens.

[Doug Wright]

I've not played the Wildfire courses but from this tour it looks interesting enough. How does the Wildfire Faldo course compare with, say, Talking Stick North, Vista Verde, Longbow, Southern Dunes?

[Matthew Petersen]

Matthew - this is a terrific tour from someone who clearly knows the course well.  It the valley effect strong on this course?  That could be a decent explanation for the flat greens.

I've never noticed any "Valley effect" out there at all.

"Valley effect" is sort of a misnomer, really. It's the north Scottsdale courses where you get that influence and you get it from being on an elongated mountainside, not because the Valley itself is pulling--the Valley just happens to be the convenient direction everything goes in. But the "Valley" itself is well away and there are plenty of courses that sit in between the Valley/downtown and those courses which do have the "Valley effect" that see no effect on their putts at all (I'm thinking of the resorts along the Scottsdale Rd corridor--Camelback, McCormick Ranch, Stonecreek, etc). A pedantic point, my apologies.

In reality, the flattish greens are for a more mundane reason--it's a resort course. They aren't totally flat and boring. 2, 7, 8, and 16 at a minimum have some good interest, and plenty of others offer challenge via slop as opposed to undulation; they just aren't going to be what anyone remembers about the course, which was probably the point.

[Matthew Petersen]

I've not played the Wildfire courses but from this tour it looks interesting enough. How does the Wildfire Faldo course compare with, say, Talking Stick North, Vista Verde, Longbow, Southern Dunes?

You picked interesting courses for comparison, well done. All these courses exist on generally flat desert sites where any interest had to be manufactured in some way or another.

Of your list, my clear favorite would be Southern Dunes. I only played 9 holes at Longbow and was sick as a dog for those, but with those provisos I didn't see anything out there I liked any more than the Faldo course. I think I personally would favor Faldo just a bit over VV, but they are close. Faldo even from the tips is much shorter and sort of sportier. But then Faldo is about 10 minutes from my front door and VV is much, much further, so I have a clear bias there.

The knock on Faldo, until I see otherwise for myself, is the conditioning. It has all the makings of a course meant to play firm, but it's almost always soggy. That's what happens when you have a high end resort flooding the fairways to make sure they are green even when it's been 115 for three months, but it's a damn shame. And quite frankly the rate is too steep for me to go find out of conditions are more favorable this time of year. I rather doubt it.

There's an LPGA event now that uses the back nine of the Faldo. They play in March, I think. I'll have to pay attention the next time around to get a sense of what condition the place is in that time of year.

[Andy Hughes]

Matthew, what ever happened to the back nine? 

A good question. I'll see if I can get those photos uploaded.

tick tock! 

[Matthew Petersen]

#10, par 4, 460/441



One of the longest two-shotters on the course, this is kind of a curious hole. 10-12 all play directly out in the same direction from the clubhouse and are generally into the wind, so here you have three long holes that all play even longer. This is by far the meat of the course right here.

The tee shot is nondescript. There's OB left and perhaps that explains the bunkers on that side as well--because strategy doesn't. Approaching from the left would mean a long iron over some of the deepest green side bunkers on the course, so it's not really like you want to be over there.



You can see the large containment mounding down the right side. There's a finger of desert over there but mostly on the opposite side of 10 is the 18th hole, which means there's effectively a ton of room to the right (at least where you can find your ball, if maybe have a very awkward stance.)

From the center of the fairway you can see plenty of room to play safe to the right of the green but very deep bunkering to the left. The green is somewhat L-shaped, running from from right toward the back left. Thus a tee shot down the right side helps open up an angle, again esp. with a long iron in hand, toward a back left hole.

10 approach:

Again in this pic from the left of the green, beyond the bunkers, this is a green with big long waves throughout.

10 green (from left):

#11, par 5, 547/538



11 tee:

Often a very long par 5 into the wind, but this hole can also be reachable if the wind is down (or following) and the course is firm. That big bunker down the left draws the eye and you can see the hole bends slightly in that direction. In reality, there's little reward for challenging that bunker. You can hit it a mile on a line to the right of it, and there's very little fairway over the bunker. There's a lot of rough and a low area left of and beyond the bunker, and then OB even further left. Tricky visuals. Again mounds down the right, but this time with some bunkers carved out.

11 tee:

This is the left fairway bunker. Drive it in here and it's going to be tough to get home in regulation.



Again the green is open in front, but with trouble on all sides and behind. Not a big green and this one is defended more with slope than contour.



11 green:


#12, par 4, 478/461



The longest par 4 on the course and the last of a series of 3 holes usually into the wind and LONG. Not much mystery here, this hole is long and straight with a big bunker left that must be avoided, and OB further left of that. The green is open in front but running off to the left.



12 green:


#13, par 4, 360/347



After the gauntlet of 10-12, 13 is a good respite. Definitely a birdie chance, but no pushover. 13 and 15 share a tee (the tips anyway) and from here you want to hit an iron or fairway wood down the right side. The fairway falls off to the left down toward a bunker/waste area.



13 approach:


The further right you can keep it off the tee, the more your short iron approach opens up. That shot is uphill and over another big front bunker. Another green defended with slope.

13 green:




#14, par 3, 214/187



A long par 3 that looks very difficult but actually gives plenty of room for a long iron shot. The green is big and the bunkers, which look to be everywhere from the tee, do not encroach on it too much. A nice sort of "harder than it looks" hole.

14 tee:


14 green:


14 green from back:



15, par 5, 607/594



A long par 5. Straightaway but from a slightly off center back tee (less so for more forward tees). You have a bunker down the right and desert very close down the left side. This hole is virtually never going to be reachable so it's all about finding the fairway for your first and second shots. Not very strategic, sure, but it's a good challenging true 3-shot hole. This one seems to play harder than you'd generally expect, especially if you're starting to look forward to the last 3, where you can score ...

15 tee:


15 approach:


15 green approach:



#16, par 4, 314/307



The second potentially drivable hole, this one I really like. You have 3 basic options from the tee: short, right, or straight at it. Short or right can be anywhere along the line of the fairway you like. You can hit an iron and leave in a full shot or hit it way up parallel to the green and leave a flop over the bunkers. If you want to go for the green, it's quite do-able but trouble abounds. First, you must carry deep bunkers and avoid more deep bunkers right and left. Also on the left, the green falls very quickly away to desert from which you will not recover, which can complicate even short iron approaches (or bunker shots from any of the deep bunkers that abound on this hole).

Note how the back tees have a view partially obscured by vegetation, and how the angle gets better as you move forward.

16 tee back obscured by bushes:


16 tee further right better view:


16 approach:


16 straight on short of green:


16 far right side approach:


The green also has a ton of movement, including a lower back left section. There's certainly enough interest here to ensure that even a drive that finds the green may have a difficult two-putt. And, to that end, if you lay up, even a short approach must be very accurate.

16 looking back:


16 green view of trouble left (from behind):



#17, par 3, 177/168



Hole plays slightly shorter than that listed yardage. The 17th tee blends nicely from the 16th green (same things happens again with 17 green and 18 tee). What you see is really what you get here. The further left the hole location is, the more you need to carry, or you can shape a shot right-to-left.

Nice waves through the green.







17 green from 18 tee:



#18, par 4, 420/410



Certainly the bunkers dominate your vision off the tee, but there's plenty of room to get between them. For longer hitters, the play is a draw off the right edge of the fairway. That intimidating bunker left is only about a 225 carry from the back tee so a longer player can actually bomb it by, but the view gets in your head. The green opens up somewhat better from the right side of the fairway--the bunker left of the green is by far the worst miss. Missing short and right of the green leaves a pretty simple pitch. A simple but good finishing hole, one that can equally yield birdie opportunities but presents plenty of trouble for the overly aggressive.



18 right fwy bunker:


18 approach:


18 green:

[Matthew Petersen]

Thanks for keeping on me, Andy. 

[Tom Yost]

Matthew, thanks for the effort!

I must have missed the first posting of the front nine.

I've played the Faldo course two times, found it to be interesting and fun.  The impression that stayed with me is "lots of bunkers" however they are mostly strategic in nature.  The playing corridors are generous and I did not get the feeling of 'tightness' that is common with some desert/target designs.   Matthew is right, save for the very long drive to the first tee, the course is entirely walkable.

Despite its intended market of resort golfers, it is not the type of course that immediately reveals itself.  There is a lot of visual deception and I think several plays are needed to figure out the right lines.  I believe the Faldo course shares a lot of its design values with the other very good Schmidt-Curley product in town - Southern Dunes.

The only real downside for me is the tourist-targeted price point.  In fact, the only times I played it were in the dead of the summer and even then, the rates were on the higher end of the scale.  The problem with summer visits was the wet conditions that were necessary to maintain the bent greens.  With both of my rounds, the greens were being heavily watered to survive the desert summer and this naturally affected playability as the run-up shot was inhibited by soft surrounds and the greens themselves were riddled with pitch mark damage.

Hopefully that's been resolved as they did convert the bent greens to Bermuda a few years ago, which should help with playability and maintenance. 

[Andy Hughes]

Thanks for keeping on me, Andy. 

Thanks for the tour, it's much appreciated.

[Garland Bayley]

Thanks for the tour. You could improve the reader's experience by changing img to img width=800 in all your posts.