{"id":2814,"date":"2024-12-24T12:02:40","date_gmt":"2024-12-24T19:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/?p=2814"},"modified":"2024-12-25T20:08:23","modified_gmt":"2024-12-26T03:08:23","slug":"thrilling-golf-in-arizona-amidst-scottsdales-stadiums-snakes-cactus-and-chic-cuisine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/golf\/courses-and-travel\/2814\/thrilling-golf-in-arizona-amidst-scottsdales-stadiums-snakes-cactus-and-chic-cuisine","title":{"rendered":"Thrilling Golf in Arizona Amidst Scottsdale\u2019s Stadiums, Snakes, Cactus and Chic Cuisine"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Nick<\/a>

Nick Jervis, We-Ko-Pa pro, avoids golf danger with great shots. Photo by Harrison Shiels<\/p><\/div>\n

Golf\u2026a dangerous sport? The NFL\u2019s big, brutish, bouncing bodies\u2026and the bumpers of race cars\u2026 have athletes facing necessary roughness and literally driving to survive. But steering a drive onto a fairway or bump-and-running a golf ball is not lethal, is it?<\/p>\n

Beware, boredom, because excitement lurks between every tee and green during desert golf rounds in Scottsdale, Arizona\u2019s deep density of courses. Nick Jervis is an assistant golf professional at We-Ko-Pa Golf Club\u2019s two Sonoran Desert tracks, including the Bill Coore\/Ben Crenshaw-designed Saguaro \u2013 Arizona\u2019s top-rated public course. He explained that a \u201csaguaro\u201d is a benign grandfatherly cactus that can grow to over 60-feet tall and live up to 250 years.<\/p>\n

But We-Ko-Pa\u2019s other course, \u201cCholla,\u201d is named for a desert plant that can attack players. \u201cIt is known as \u2018jumping cholla\u2019 because if you get near them, their sharp, super-small barbs will detach and get into your skin. When you pull away from them in pain, you pull the cactus with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

I told Jervis my single experience with jumping cholla led to limping off a golf course with a very bloody sock. \u201cI have pulled cholla barbs from a player\u2019s head during a round,\u201d he countered. He also helped save a golfer who had been bitten by a rattlesnake. \u201cWe hurried him off the course and, via helicopter, to exactly where he needed to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

I asked Jervis for advice on how to avoid an airlift? \u201cRattlesnakes come out of their burrows in March and April. If you don\u2019t go looking for them, you\u2019ll be okay. And a rattlesnake will let you know they are nearby when you hear the sound.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Phoenician\u2019s Veranda. Photo by Harrison Shiels<\/p><\/div>\n

The roadrunners I saw at spectacularly scenic We-Ko-Pa didn\u2019t scare me, but should I be careful of coyotes? \u201cYou don\u2019t want to go near them, but they are more afraid of you than you are of them. They hang out, do their own thing, and can be friendly. There is a halfway house grill on the Saguaro course where a female coyote will come up to guests on the 10th<\/sup>\u00a0tee because she learned some people will feed her,\u201d said Jervis. He also advised against feeding javalinas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are worth avoiding because they can be very mean. A javalina looks like a pig, and get as big as 50 lbs., but is in the rodent family. If you see one, there are typically 20 around because they travel in herds. They can\u2019t see anything, so you could walk right up to them and they would not know it. But if there is a piglet around\u2026well, look, everything is out to get you here in the desert.\u201d<\/p>\n

Less dramatic, but no less dangerous, are the inevitable golf cart accidents when golfers at the wheel \u201cenjoy themselves too much\u201d or get distracted by the panorama of the four mountain peaks visible from anywhere on the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation\u2019s We-Ko-Pa\u2019s courses. \u201cThey usually flip an overturned cart back up, but when they drive in, we can see the cart roof is a little awry or maybe the tires are pointed at each other,\u201d revealed Jervis.<\/p>\n

\"TPC<\/a>

TPC Scottsdale\u2019s famed stadium hole. Photo by Harrison Shiels<\/p><\/div>\n

Arizona\u2019s unabashed bash is the PGA Tour event held annually at TPC Scottsdale course. The big-money tournament draws the largest, most \u201centhusiastic\u201d crowds of any golf event on the planet \u2013 many of them sipping and swigging while seated at the Tom Weiskopf\/Jay Morrish-designed Stadium course\u2019s 16th<\/sup>\u00a0hole: a par-three surrounded by bleachers built for at least 20,000 fans.<\/p>\n

Resort players who tee it up at TPC between September and early February enjoy the excitement and fantasy of the stadium experience while the bleachers are built for the likes of pro golf stars Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Bryson DeChambeau, and Rory McIlroy. Golf fans recall the shared mayhem of Tiger Woods making a hole-in-one there in 1997; and the big boulder spectators moved out of his swing path two years later. But curiously Wood never won the PGA Tour event now dubbed \u201cthe greatest show on grass\u201d at Scottsdale.<\/p>\n

\"Troon<\/a>

Troon North Golf Club is fraught with challenge. Photo by Harrison Shiels<\/p><\/div>\n

Another dangerous thing about a golf trip to Scottsdale would be not playing Troon North Golf Club\u2019s two courses \u2013 Monument and Pinnacle – at the base of Pinnacle Peak. They\u2019re two of the Weiskopf-designed (the Troon name is in homage to the Scottish club where Tom won the British Open) original tracks to put the area on the golf rankings map.<\/p>\n

Another \u201cOG\u201d is The Phoenician Golf Club, a classic which evolves by embracing a modern twist of \u201cShark Experience\u201d technology on its power carts featuring on-course streaming tips from Greg Norman, live sports, and music.<\/p>\n

We-Ko-Pa; TPC Scottsdale; and The Phoenician Golf each offer luxury lodging. Visit\u00a0ExperienceScottsdale.com<\/p>\n

Contact Michael Patrick Shiels at\u00a0<\/em>MShiels@aol.com<\/em><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0His new book: Travel Tattler \u2013 Not So Torrid Tales, may be purchased via\u00a0Amazon.com\u00a0Hear his radio talk show on WJIM\u00a0AM 1240\u00a0in Lansing weekdays\u00a0from 9 am \u2013 noon.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Golf\u2026a dangerous sport? The NFL\u2019s big, brutish, bouncing bodies\u2026and the bumpers of race cars\u2026 have athletes facing necessary roughness and… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":2816,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[94915,4998],"class_list":["post-2814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-courses-and-travel","tag-golf-2","tag-michael-patrick-shiels"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/34\/2024\/12\/Scottsdale-golf-e1735182460602.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2814"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2824,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814\/revisions\/2824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}