Cave Creek Golf Course (Phoenix, AZ)

Apparently, I picked the wrong week to come down to Phoenix. With Spring Training starting up, many of the courses doubled their green fees. Looking for value, I found myself playing at a couple city owned tracks. 

(The 208 yard 17th has a baraitz feature where the flat area is short of the green, and the swale is the front half of the green. A par here is darn good score.) 

 Cave Creek was just a few miles from where I was staying. It was built in the ‘80s on a reclaimed parcel of land. A large wash cuts thru the property, and the best holes take advantage of it. This is the most popular course in Phoenix! That fact is a great statement to how well Jack Snyder designed the course. 

The bunkers are used judiciously, and the water hazards are placed in strategic spots to make players think twice. The greens though are the best part of the course. They are beautifully shaped, and various pin positions change the shot needed to best attack the hole. There’s plenty of open ground for high cappers to keep the pace moving. It’s very well done in that regard! 

While several of the holes skirt alongside the wash, only two play over it, eleven and eighteen. Eleven is a fine par five that plays across then up and over to the green. 

(I’m a big fan of the diagonal carry over the wash....

...a good drive brings the green reachable in two shots.)

As one can tell by the above pics, Cave Creek is a bit brown. This allows a magnitude of shots to be pulled off by the golfer. These imperfect conditions make a very fun round! 

As much as I want to discuss Cave Creek, it’s Jack Snyder who I am most interested in. His father worked with Emil Loeffler, and he was trained by his father to be a course superintendent. His background gave him a huge advantage in understanding everything that goes into designing a golf course. He understood exactly what makes a course profitable. 

(The 18th green funnels precisely where pin is in the pic. The tee shot is much more dangerous than the eleventh, since a ball that fails to make the fairway will roll into the wash. The last two greens are quite different than the rest, but the reason, according to my playing companions, is the ground hasn’t finished settling.) 

Both times I played Cave Creek, the parking lot was packed full of cars. I dont doubt the claim that is the most popular course in Phoenix. While it might not architecturally be worth seeking out, I enjoyed playing here very much. The quality of the green contours bumps the course up one. I give it a 4 (above average)(worth 30-45 min drive).