From today's Arizona Republic:
Has anyone played there yet? I stopped by and took a mini tour during my recent AZ trip but didn't have time to play. From what I saw, this course has a good look to it. Of course, the houses have yet to be built.
www.blackstonecountryclub.comWest Valley hits upscale ace
Blackstone opens golf's next 'hotbed'
John Davis
The Arizona Republic
Dec. 14, 2005 12:00 AM
Golf development is expected to boom in the West Valley over the next decade, and already it is beginning to take shape.
One more sign of what's ahead came last week when Blackstone Country Club at Vistancia opened in Peoria.
The course, designed by award-winning architect James Engh, is part of a gated, private country club that will include swimming pools, tennis courts, private cabanas and fine dining when it is completed, making it the first country club of its kind in the Northwest Valley.
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The Hacienda, a 30,000-square-foot clubhouse, designed by acclaimed architect Bing Hu, is scheduled for completion in October.
With those amenities, Blackstone plans to offer the kind of experience found at Scottsdale's private clubs.
"What we wanted to do is offer a high-end alternative in the West Valley and provide something that is missing in a growing area," said John Graham, president of Sunbelt Holdings, which partnered with Shea Homes in the Blackstone project.
"There's no question that the West Valley is going to be the next hotbed of golf development."
Those who become golf club members at Blackstone will find a superbly designed course named for the volcanic rock indigenous to the area.
Although it has a desert setting, Engh draws much of his design inspiration from Irish links courses and that comes through loud and clear with the bunkering, mounding and rolling fairways that make Blackstone a delight to play.
"Most definitely it has an Irish feel," Engh said. "I am a huge fan of Irish golf courses and there are ways to make it work very well in a desert setting. In a lot of cases there seems to be a book on how a course should be designed to fit a certain area and I don't agree with that.
"There are design challenges, but those challenges invite some interesting concepts. To me, the most fun thing in golf is to hit a shot you've never hit before, so we need to think outside the box a little bit in terms of design."
Engh was named Golf Digest's first Architect of the Year in 2003.
Four times his courses have been named No. 1 on the magazine's list of "America's Best New Courses" and he is the only architect to achieve that honor three straight years. Included in his designs are the Club at Blackrock in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and Fossil Trace in Golden, Colo.
His Blackstone course is his first in Arizona and takes advantage of natural features such as valleys, arroyos, ridges, dry washes and rock outcroppings, blending them with deep bunkers and rolling fairways.
It has the nuances and semi-blind shots that lend themselves to home-course knowledge, but the mounding also produces "member bounces," especially around the greens, that make it a fun and player-friendly layout with plenty of options on approach shots.
Engh's favorite hole, not surprisingly, is the par-5 ninth, which plays at 555 yards from the tips to an awe-inspiring green. The green is set on a sharp right angle to the fairway, where golfers must stay clear of an arroyo running along the right side and crossing in front of a shallow, elevated green that sits in a natural amphitheater with vertical rock faces on three sides.
"That is an example of a hole where we had to move a considerable amount of dirt in order to take advantage of the natural setting of the green," Engh said.
"I think it's a very different, very challenging and at the same time a very fun hole to play."
The Vistancia master plan calls for two more private courses. A public course, Trilogy at Vistancia, opened last year.