Scottsdale National GC -- Interesting concept

[Bill_McBride]

I'm interested to see if this concept works in the long run. Given that the strategy is to only need a small membership base, it might be possible to find enough with deep pocketbooks to make this venture work.

The club is clearly basing itself on high quality amenities and facilities--things that are generally not valued as much by this group. This case is most interesting because it is one of the few (only??) clubs to start as a "regular" high-end club, only to go super-exclusive and high end. Most of the others started that way from the beginning and were always tough to access. Many potential guests may have already had a chance to play Scottsdale National, at least the original version. Does that impact how this venture fares?

I'm curious if the golf course is good enough to lend itself to that type of club. I enjoyed the course, but put it in the same category as most of the other high-end clubs in that area. I don't see the original course being any better than Whisper Rock, Desert Highlands, a few Desert Mountain courses, Desert Forest, or Estancia. Perhaps the changes improve it, but most of them seem to be non-golf related. Will be interesting to see.

Agreed, Andy, and the tough hike on 15 ruined a very walkable routing.  A bunch of good holes but none I thought were excellent.

[JESII]

The truth is, there's no way to ever measure the success of this plan. Parsons has too much in it now to ever have it make financial sense...but that doesn't much matter.

At some point he'll grow tired of the model and cash out...likely at a profit...and the next owners will start from scratch.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Bob Parsons will be building a second course at his Scottsdale National GC, among other things:


http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/scottsdale/2015/07/10/godaddy-founder-grand-vision-golf-course/29926035/

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Jackson, Kahn has been selected for the second course:


[/size]www.jacksonkahndesign.com