{"id":264,"date":"2011-03-24T22:01:27","date_gmt":"2011-03-24T22:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jaystuller.com\/?p=264"},"modified":"2013-05-10T18:15:23","modified_gmt":"2013-05-10T18:15:23","slug":"eagle-mountain-a-friend-in-the-desert-is-a-friend-of-mine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/golf\/264\/eagle-mountain-a-friend-in-the-desert-is-a-friend-of-mine","title":{"rendered":"Eagle Mountain: A Friend in the Desert is a Friend of Mine"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

The vistas at Eagle Mountain stretch for up to 50 miles.<\/p><\/div>\n

What\u2019s most distinctive about desert golf is the way the vistas can inspire the eye and mind, while the course beats your game to a bloody pulp, especially when shots stray more than 12 inches off of a fairway.\u00a0 Rough? \u00a0It ain\u2019t just taller and thicker grass in Arizona\u2019s Sonoran Desert around Scottsdale<\/a>, Fountain Hills and Fort McDowell<\/a>.\u00a0 Here, rough means gravel, sand, rocks, spiny cactus that will shoot needles at anyone stepping too close to its root system, and bushes that botanists have named unplayabilis lieus<\/em>.<\/p>\n

However, one of the best public courses in the area provides vistas stretching 50 miles, seductive elevation changes, enchanting natural box canyons, washes that cross fairways, and yet is a pleasure to play.\u00a0 Designed by Scott Miller<\/a>, an architect with a penchant for creating delightful courses, Eagle Mountain<\/a> is most certainly a desert-style layout. But unlike several other nearby courses, it very seldom makes players stand on a tee box and contemplate a 200 yard forced carry over a wasteland that\u2019s a known habitat of venomous snakes.<\/p>\n

A par 71 with four sets of tees that range from 5,065 to 6,800 yards, Eagle Mountain features rather wide fairways, many of which are funnel-shaped and feed slight off-line shots back down to level playing ground.\u00a0 The course starts out softy, with a par five that\u2019s downhill all the way, and reachable in two for those who hit it long.\u00a0 The second hole has that mounding that directs tees shots to the middle of the fairway.\u00a0 But on this green is where one starts running into the defenses Miller built into the course, a double tiered putting surface that is fast, steep and tricky as Richard Nixon.<\/p>\n

Some of the greens, in fact, have three tiers, explains Eagle Mountain pro Derek Nannen, and several have ridges and significant slopes.\u00a0 \u201cThe course is very generous off the tee, but with the way Scott Miller designed it, you\u2019ve got more to deal with on the greens, says Nannen. \u00a0“So as you work from tee to green, you go from easy to hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

On a number of holes the greens are set against hillsides, which enables a player to go long, knowing the ball will roll back to the pin.\u00a0 The first time we played the course in the early 2000s, I didn\u2019t know enough to take advantage of this feature.\u00a0 But when we played again during the 2006 and 2009 Xona Resort Suites Scottsdale Media Golf Classic<\/a>, I knew precisely where I should try to go and where I should not.\u00a0The tenth, for example, is one of only two on the course with a water hazard.\u00a0 A 535-yard par five from the tips, it offers a wide and danger free landing area off the tee.\u00a0 Stay to the right on your second shot, so that you avoid the lake on the left and have a spot from which to play a high approach shot that comes in over a cluster of bunkers on the left front of the green.\u00a0 High is important, as a thin boring approach the rolls will go off the green and into water.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>The 18th<\/sup> is almost a reverse image of ten, except that it\u2019s a par four and most of the lake on the right has bunkers separating the fairway from the water.\u00a0 It\u2019s downhill all the way and this tee is the highest vantage point on the course.\u00a0 If you happen to be here near dusk when the light changes, the hills – – like many others in this part of Arizona – – change colors from brown to red in dramatic fashion.\u00a0 But back to golf:\u00a0 Stay to the left on the closing hole and again, come in high and soft and favor the left side of the green, which has a hill to feed bailouts back to safety.<\/p>\n

While many of Eagle Mountain\u2019s fairways are flanked by houses, most are in the appealing Southwestern desert style, and nearly all are offset far enough from the course as to not be distracting.\u00a0 While one can go miss fairways, the roughage in this desert is simply not as menacing or as non-negotiable as at many other Arizona courses.\u00a0 To borrow a riff from the Grateful Dead, any friend in the desert is a friend of mine.<\/p>\n

Back in 2006, one rating organization ranked Eagle Mountain as the top public golf course in the state.\u00a0 A quick look at websites where golfers leave feedback confirms that players are effusive with compliments for the course, and aren\u2019t much inclined to offer criticism. \u00a0“This is one of those courses that really grows on you,” says my friend Wayne Freedman. \u00a0“The first time around you might not appreciate it, but the next time around it’s pretty clear you’re on a quality course that’s also a good deal.”<\/p>\n

Indeed, as\u00a0with many courses in the region, rates vary greatly depending on the time of year, the day of the week, whether you book in advance, walk up or schedule ahead as a foursome.\u00a0 At times you\u2019ll pay as much as $195 for an Eagle Mountain round, and in other circumstances as low as $56, which is a downright remarkable bargain given the excellent grooming that goes along with the challenging and yet manageable architecture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s most distinctive about desert golf is the way the vistas can inspire the eye and mind, while the course… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":265,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[277563,9,3913,4786,6569,17],"tags":[6116,6117,6118,6119,440],"class_list":["post-264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wisconsin-golfer","category-golf","category-scottsdale-cvb","category-fhfmvb","category-azga","category-courses-and-travel","tag-eagle-mountain","tag-scottsdale-convention-and-visitors-bureau","tag-fountain-hills-fort-mcdowell","tag-xona-resort-suites","tag-arizona"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2011\/03\/EM-A-4-wide_thumb.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1199,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions\/1199"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/jaystuller\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}