Course: Moon Valley Country Club

Location: Phoenix, AZ

Course stats: Black tees — 7,216 yards, par 72. Blue tees — 6,584 yards.

Overview/Thoughts: I kind of have a love/hate relationship with golf in Phoenix. The weather is pretty solid over the winter — it is going to be warm enough to play and you don’t have a great chance of rain — and that’s great. But the golf courses can be lacking.

While there are plenty of golf courses in the Phoenix area, too many of them fall into one of four categories.

1. Courses that are boring because of pancake greens and cookie-cutter design.

2. Courses that have houses that are way too close to the playing corridors and aren’t all that much fun.

3. Courses that have greens that stimp at about 6.

4. Courses that have good conditions or are interesting, but are way too expensive. The similar courses are the one that simply overpriced for what they are or for the condition or are expensive and have horrible pace of play.

There are certainly some good options in the Phoenix area where there is a combination of interesting holes, good conditions and a fair price (fair is subjective as I think you can pay $150 and have it be a good value or you can pay $50 and feel ripped off). I like Raven at Verrado, Trilogy at Vistancia and Wigwam Gold. I’ve heard only good things about Southern Dunes and Vista Verde. I’ve had good experiences at Talking Stick and We-Ko-Pa, but I do realize those fees can get a little steep.

I now have a new option: Moon Valley Country Club. Moon Valley is a private club in Phoenix. It was designed by Dick Wilson and Bob Cupp did some work out there. And the club is now putting tee times on GolfNow with rates of less than $100 (this could change as we get into January and February).  The club previously hosted an annual LPGA event and it is the course that Annika Sorenstam lit up for a smooth 59.

On a recent trip to Phoenix, I had a very nice day at Moon Valley, and it isn’t just because I played well. There are some interesting holes and the greens were the smoothest and fastest I played in four rounds.

Because the club was built as a private club — and it is my understanding that the membership is working hard to keep it that way despite issues with the city over water — there are more interesting holes. This was meant to be a solid test of golf for people who play on a regular basis rather than a public course where features (greens, bunkering, forced carries) are softened to ensure that not-so-avid golfers get around in a decent amount of time. Because of that, there is more slope in the greens, there are some elevated greens and players can’t just run the ball onto the green on every hole.

The course, which stretches to 7,216 yards (I played it at 6,584), is certainly worth a look. Because it was initially built in the 50s or 60s, this is much more of a parkland course than a desert layout. That said, it isn’t over treed. There are holes that turn both directions, there’s a par 5 that’s reachable in two, there are beefy par 4s, there are par 4s where placement is more important than power. Throw in the fact that the course is very walkable (there are a couple of green-to-tee walks of maybe 200-300 yards) and it is a wonderful way to spend a day. I played with a husband and wife. I walked, they rode. We hardly waited and played in 3 hours, 45 minutes.

If there’s a weakness of this course, it is the 17th. With a big pond left and a tee box that doesn’t really aim the golfer at the fairway, it is an awkward hole, especially that late in the round. I probably would like it more if I played there again, but it didn’t seem to fit.

Below are some pictures.

Here is the approach from about 125 into the par 5 fourth hole.

Here is the eighth green — which is a double green with the second. I hit it on the front of the green of this par 5 in two (yes that’s my ball in bottom right of the picture.

Here is the par 3 11th (about 185 from these tees)

This might be the coolest green on the course — the clover-shaped green on No. 14 (389 from the back, 350 from the 6600 tees). This view is from just over the back. Obviously getting the ball in the correct section is pretty important if you want to avoid a three-jack.

Here is 18 (454/416) from about 200 out. There is some green behind the front right bunker that you can’t see.

I recently returned from a week in Arizona. It has become an annual trip to visit my parents around Christmas. As is the case most years, I try to play golf about every other day. This year was no different as I teed it up four times during the week away.

My expectations were modest. I wanted to play golf, but I knew that I hadn’t played in more than a month and hit balls just once in anticipation of the trip.

Maybe that’s why golf is such a funny game.

My first round on the trip was at a pretty modest course called Hillcrest Golf Club in Sun City West. It is close to my parents and isn’t too expensive, but it previously hosted both Senior Tour and LPGA events. It’s a pretty good place to knock off some rust.

I knocked it to a foot on the second hole to make birdie; rolled in about a 20-footer on No. 6 for a birdie and was 1-under at the turn. I followed that up with a birdie on the short par 5 10th and then added another on the 12th. After a par on 13, I was 3-under standing on the 14th tee.

I missed the green there and leaked a bunch more oil coming in, but felt like it was a solid effort. I thought it was a nice blip on a pretty course without a ton of trouble off of the tee. Little did I realize it was just the beginning.

About 48 hours, I teed it up at Moon Valley Country Club in Phoenix, a private club that was the site of Annika Sorenstam’s 59. The club is putting up a handful of tee times each day on GolfNow and I snagged one.  (I’ll talk more about the golf course in a later post, but it is worth a play if you head to Phoenix this winter).

I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but it turned out to be my best round of golf in a long, long time. I’m not going to give you the blow-by-blow (I know it would bore you), but I will give you a couple highlights. After making a bogey on the second hole, I managed to play the next 13 holes 4-under par.

I birdied three of the four par 5s, I hit 13 greens on the day. I never got in any real serious trouble meaning that double bogey was never really in play.

When I walked to the 14th tee after making a surprising birdie, I was 3-under. I was scared to death. And it was awesome. A bit of background on my game: My USGA index is 4.0 and sometimes I feel like it is too low. I can shoot in the 70s, but I can also throw an 85 on the board pretty quickly. I don’t end up with many rounds each year under 75. And I don’t make birdies in bunches. That’s why this was so weird.

I was so far out of my comfort zone, it was amazing. After a couple of pars, I was still 3-under when I walked to 16. At this point, I was really getting scared. I’m not sure when the last time I shot in the 60s was. I did it a couple of times in college on the course I grew up on and I think that was it. It was probably ’91 or ’92. It was back when I was playing a lot.

I made bogey on 16 largely because I drove it into the only fairway bunker on the hole. I was just short of the green in regulation and had a pretty easy chip, but simply didn’t execute and left too long of a putt. I hit the final two greens in regulation and had decent runs at birdie on both of them. Neither putt was super close, but they weren’t impossible.

On 18, my birdie putt didn’t quite get to the hole. I tapped in for par and a 2-under round of 70. I was kind of disappointed because I have no idea when I’ll have another chance at a round in the 60s, but I was also super thrilled with what was a round that I’ll remember for a long time. The couple that I was paired with was super supportive. The guy at one point asked how many under I was and said he didn’t want to jinx me, but it was the best round he had ever seen in his group.

It was, in a word, magical. It was super fun. It also came completely out of nowhere, there were no signs that this was on the horizon. It wasn’t like I had been playing better or had been working really hard on my game. Now If I only knew how it happened. My final two rounds of the trip featured too many wayward drives and missed greens. Neither were horrible, but both were in the low 80s range. Pretty standard stuff for a rusty December trip to the desert.

The game is hard. The game can be frustrating. The game makes me (or is it all of us) say bad words. But when it is good, it is a lot of fun.

So this landed in my inbox just a little bit ago from the folks at Mississippi Dunes.

Golfers,

The golf course will be open on Sunday, December 18th for an 11:00am shotgun event.  Reservations are required and you must register online.

Cost: 2-some package for $98 or a 4-some package for $196.
Packages include golf, cart, buffet lunch and 2 drink tickets.

This event is limited to the first 100 golfers registered online.
If the weather is below 32 degrees we will issue rain-checks for the 2012 season which will have NO RESTRICTIONS.

So, yes, we will have a shotgun start at Mississippi Dunes on Sunday. The 18th of December.

Update: Blog reader Stensation says that Majestic Oaks is also open.

I won’t be there, but I’m sure there will be some people there. A lot of them probably considering the high temperature could reach 40.

I’m not a super huge fan of Mississippi Dunes, but I do think it is good for early or late season golf like this. Because of the sandy structure to the soil, the course drains very, very well. It shouldn’t be a muddy mess on Sunday.

This would be one of the later Minnesota rounds I can remember. One of the first years after I moved back to Minnesota in 2000, I played a mid-December round at Daytona Golf Club. It was cold, but fun. I’m pretty sure that ponds were frozen over.

Anyway, good luck to anybody who tees it up this weekend.

So this morning, the Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote about a story that had been out in the golf community for about a week. The news is that Windsong Farm is in a heap of financial trouble. I didn’t want to write this previously, but now that it is in the biggest paper in the state, the timing seems OK.

The western Hennepin County club has essentially turned the keys to the Fought/Lehman design back to the bank. What happens now is anyone’s guess.

Will the bank try to sell the club? Would the membership purchase it? Will the bank hire a management company to run the golf course? Will it remain private? Will the course open its doors to some public play? Any of those things seem like they could be possibilities.

Preface to the rest of this: I’m not exactly sure if I should be talking in the present tense or the past tense, so to those who like to copy edit, it’s kind of a tense mess.

My opinion? I feel bad for the members and I feel bad for Minnesota golf in general. I wrote about Windsong Farm when I was still at the Star Tribune just as it opened. At that point, the golf course was just finishing the grow-in process and they were running the place out of a double-wide trailer. The last time I was out there, that story was still on display in the golf shop.

I really liked/like the club and what it was about. It was a place that was about golf and that was it. There was no pool, no tennis courts, no big social events. There isn’t a massive clubhouse with big banquet facilities. The club encouraged/demanded that golfers should walk when they played. There were no tee-times. There is a great practice facility (which for a while had ProV1s as range balls). I like all of that stuff.

Unlike the modern, high-dollar course up the road, Windsong really seemed to be way more about golf than it was about being rich. Now, Windsong wasn’t exactly about affordable golf nor was it open to the public, but it was way less about money.

The golf course itself was very, very solid. The back nine (with the exception of what I think is an awkward 18th hole) is filled with interesting and fun holes with some cool green complexes. I like several holes on the front nine (Nos. 2, 3, 4, 7), but the stretch from 5-9 has a few too many really, really long shots that seems more of a death march than a walk in the park.

What did the place in? I have no idea. According to the story, the club has 230 members (130 who have equity in the club). Is that enough? Apparently not.The initiation fee was in the $70,000 range at one point, but they also let some people in for nothing or next to nothing.

I haven’t seen the books, so I don’t know if they issue was not enough dues paying members, not enough other revenue, too much staff or what. Obviously the economy has never been great since the club opened — Tom Lehman has said that he was working on the golf course when planes went into the World Trade Center on 9/11 — but there are other things at play as well.

To the best of my understanding, there were not regular Monday corporate outings at Windsong. While Monday outings aren’t a favorite thing of members, they are kind of the dirty little secret of private clubs. The things are almost 100 percent profit and go straight to the bottom line. A club can clear $10,000-15,000 on a good Monday. Multiply that by 12 or so and that’s some real cash money.

What do I think will happen? If I had to wager $5, I’m guessing Windsong will remain open next year and it will remain a private club. I’m guessing there will be a significant push to get more dues-paying members and I’m guessing they will work to generate more revenue through Mondays and potentially through more cart rental. I could be wrong, but I’m guessing that both the bank and the members want to make something work.

Short of that, I’ll be stunned if Windsong doesn’t operate as a golf course. Seems as if there’s too much to lose.