Damn i meant to post these playinng notes in March and start somethin like this. I feel Df is a wonderful course in the same way Elie or Brora or other underwhelming British course can satisfy:
Desert Forest, Carefree AZ.
Playing Notes
Desert Forest is an anomaly of, my admittedly limited, Arizona golf. The designer has found a truly links feel and design in the middle of the desert by routing a golf course over rolling, pitching ground to natural green sites that seamlessly emerge from their surroundings and that defend par thru simple but dramatic internal movement. The designer must have been familiar with “classic” golf courses of the east coast and surely overseas for how else could he introduce the many classic features such as:
Continuously changing hole direction and a solid mix of holes of varying lengths and styles.
Simple and mostly flat bottomed bunkering that frame greens or conceal additional difficulties to be avoided at the green surround. Green movement directed by simple, but severe, planar slopes created by modest ridges running in multiple directions that evoke Raynor greens instead of mounds or other more artistic copies of dunesland greens. Greens that severely penalize the improperly placed/missed approach that use natural raised mounds or ridges rather than built up platforms to produce the falloffs and shoulders that challenge the short game.
Flowing, uncluttered margins of all the features - topography, hazards, fairways, greens, surrounding desert that tie them all together in a soft and seamless unity. The designer’s wonderful feel for directing shots to a variety of rolling, pitching fairway from a variety of angles. The proximity of holes generates within the player a connecting feeling to a larger field of play yet a feeling of just enough separation from those playing other holes. Short walks from green to tee. The absence of forced carries and other penal requirements.
All of these create an open unforced naturally flowing perspective that leads the player without interruption from discovery of one strategic challenge to the next instead of being “guided “ thru highly obvious, sometimes severe, playing corridors chronic to the canyon/desert golf I found elsewhere in AZ. The desert is even a recoverable hazard in most instances
Hole No 1- An appropriate opener made memorable more for its strong resemblance to Pine Valley’s than anything else.
Hole No 2- A wonderfully straightforward beefy four par with a surprising dip in the landing area and a green framed by two simple shallow bunkers in the Scottish style. One senses that the course will not try to deceive merely keep one honest after these two holes.
Hole No. 3- A nifty postage stamp short hole. This is the first green that reveals the difficulties of holding these greens and the tough recovery shots from around them. The lake here could use some attention as the liner showed around the shore and it looked very artificial
Hole No 5- Dog leg left penalizes a safe shot down the middle with a ball lying above the player’s feet on the right side of the fairway to an uphill green guarded by a deep green right bunker that calls for a an uphill cut approach from this angle. Subtle but effective.
Hole 6- Wildly rolling fairway with some hogback areas that shrug the misplaced shot into the desert. A great green merging out of the fairway with a front right mound/ bunker complex where the facing mound conceals about half the bunker from a player whose ball is funneled to the left side of the fairway. One of my favorites
Hole 11- Stout three shotter. I like very much the effect inside one hundred yards where the fairway rolls down to a green lower than the balance of the hole but also dips to a swale forty or so yards from the green. Thus in the desirable layup area one is left with delicate downhill stance pitch to a green that is now above one’s position thereby ruling out a running shot and yet less likely to receive a low pitch shot with the kind of control required to lay the ball dead for a birdie
Hole 14- One of the true requirements of a great golf course- a great short par four. The fairway funnels balls right setting up a semi blind approach over a yawning bunker to a green with a right one third side that at higher elevations could be an intermediate ski slope.
Hole 16- A fun par five made memorable by the striking “Eisenhower” tree that appears when one rounds the dog leg left.
Hole 17- Maybe the prettiest hole on the course as the shallow vegetated wash fronting the tee presents a colorful textured foreground to a solidly bunkered and canted green.
Hole 18- Maybe I didn’t get it but for me this hole along with nine were the two weaker holes on the course. By this time tho the sub 50 degree windy drizzle had taken it’s toll on me.