Playing golf in Phoenix? This linksy desert course needs to be on your list

Below are excerpts from articles that originally appeared in Golf Magazine.

Welcome to WM Phoenix Open week, where even with a “cold” forecast it’s inevitable everyone stuck in the northern U.S. will get jealous of that glorious Phoenix weather and start dreaming of their next warm-weather retreat.

I was there in December — and I’m wishing I was still there now — for GOLF’s Top 100 Teachers Retreat. And like any savvy golf journalist on the road, I made sure to bring my clubs to sneak in a round after I landed. I’ve played public headliners like Troon North and We-Ko-Pa and Papago over the past few years, so this time I was looking for a new spot to explore. That’s when I reached out to GOLF’s resident Arizonian, Jessica Marksbury, for some insider knowledge.

“Have you played the Camelback courses?” she asked.

I had not.

“The Ambiente is very nice; I would go there first,” she said.

So at about 10:30 on a crisp Sunday morning in December, I started the engine of my rental car and readied to leave the Phoenix airport. I plugged in “Camelback Golf Club” and began my trek 16 miles northeast. I had a tee time to catch — and this, I would soon find out, was one I’m glad I did.

Before we get into the Xs and Os here, there are a few important details you should know. Camelback is a part of the JW Marriott Scottsdale Camelback Inn Resort and Spa that’s just four miles down the road. There are two golf courses that are a part of the property: the Ambiente and the Padre. They are quite different, with the Padre acting as more of a classic parkland layout that sticks around the clubhouse, while the Ambiente goes straight out and back — think the Old Course routing — and is more like a links-golf experience, something that’s not easy to find in Phoenix. Most rankings prefer the Ambiente Course, but it’s all personal preference, and those two coupled together make for one heck of a 36-hole day.

But here’s what I learned in the days before I teed off: It wasn’t always like this here.

Back in 2013, the property’s three-decade-old Indian Bend course underwent a major $10 million renovation via Jason Stracka of Hurdzan/Fry Environmental Golf Design to improve both playability and flooding. Indian Bend was extremely flat, which meant it was harder to drain after big rains. Flat courses are also less fun, so there was plenty of work to do. About 365,000 cubic yards of material was removed from the water much of the course butts up against and used to raise parts of the layout, improving not only the fun factor but the ability to properly drain. They also removed trees and added more native/desert areas. Only 90 acres of the course is now considered maintained turfgrass, which also helps the maintenance team (not to mention saves millions of gallons of water annually). When it reopened it was renamed Ambiente, which means “environment” in Spanish.

Click here to read the full article on golf.com.