A working vacation

Here's the lowdown on three courses in the Phoenix area

I've been in Scottsdale, Ariz., many times to cover the Phoenix Open, but last month I went there for a unique reason -- three days of golf. (Who do you have to sleep with to get these assignments, you wonder? Just drop it. You don't look good in jealousy. Stick with black or vertical stripes.)

Before I give you the lowdown on which sweet tracks I hacked to pieces, let me futilely attempt to tell you about the trip's highlight. There was this sunset, see. I don't know what it is about the Phoenix area, whether it's the mountains, the big sky, the dust in the air, the lack of humidity or what, but this place must have the highest percentage of dazzling sunsets in America. Yes, even better than the occasional glimpse of the Green Flash sunset over the ocean in Hawaii.

Anyway, the sun quickly changed from yellow to orange after dropping behind the mountains to the west, and soon the sky turned an electric-blue color that has never been duplicated by man, a kind of neon turquoise. Overhead, a large but thin patch of waffle-like clouds soon began to pick up some color. From a dull lavender, it soon morphed into shades of pink. The weird thing was, this patch of clouds covered most of the sky, and as the sun dropped lower, more and more of the clouds picked up color. After a few minutes, it went from pink to glowing scarlet. And I'm talking most of the sky. It was like overhead lighting. If the sky had caught fire, it wouldn't have been as impressive as this. The blaze lasted only a few minutes, then darkened slowly like glowing embers. These words are a pathetic description of what I saw, but if you're in Scottsdale in winter, trust me, plan your evening around watching the sunset. And -- oh, yeah -- have a camera ready. Or an easel with watercolors.

We-Ko-Pa

Enough talk. On to golf. My first stop was We-Ko-Pa, a new daily-fee course on land owned by the Yavapai Indians. We-Ko-Pa means Four Peaks, which you can see in the distance, and the course is a beauty. Avid Golf Plus readers may recall that I mentioned We-Ko-Pa on my list last year of the 10 best new courses. Wherever I ranked it, it wasn't high enough. It should've been No. 2, right behind Pacific Dunes. Straight talk: We-Ko-Pa is my new favorite desert course. Now, if you're a confirmed Midwesterner (or even if you haven't been confirmed but you still take communion), you know the biggest problem with desert golf is that often there's too much unplayable desert and not enough playable green stuff I like to call grass. Typically, courses on Indian lands are more forgiving because the tribes aren't subject to the same strict watering restrictions as everyone else (usually around 90 acres). We-Ko-Pa seemed to have ample space. I didn't stand up on any par-5s and wonder how the hell I was going to cover 550 yards down a fairway no wider than a bowling alley surrounded by cacti, brush, rocks and things that slither. The course has plenty of green, or bail-out areas, and it's plenty playable. What I liked best was that We-Ko-Pa had a natural look, as much as a grassy area in the desert can look natural.

A hole of note is the 10th, a 566-yard par-5 from the blues (it's 606 from the tips, which you're welcome to). About 220 yards out in the middle of the fairway, there's this big mound, a protrusion of desert, like an island, with a couple of trees and a saguaro. The fairway runs to the left and to the right (but not much), and this desert island is perfectly placed in the vicinity of the landing area. It's a unique hazard and it really makes you think. I intended to play it safe to the left but blocked a drive solidly to the right, over a slot of grass between the island and a large fairway bunker, and succeeded in blowing it past Gilligan's Island, or whatever the locals call it. After that, I hit a 3-wood into the left rough short of the green and wedged on. It's a visually intimidating hole and, though unusual, a good one.

Another favorite was the 15th, a potentially drivable par-4. It was 299 yards from the blues to a green bordered by a bunker and desert on the left, and a little bail-out to the right, but with some mounding to pitch over if you went that direction. The 16th is a monster dogleg-left par-4, featuring a wide wash that interrupts the fairway around the corner. It was 433 yards from the blues but seemed to played 20 or 30 yards longer than that.

The 18th hole was a disappointment. Not that it was a bad hole -- it was a pretty good one with a green guarded by a lake and a huge waste area on the right. I just don't like lakes on a desert course. They're fake and they're out of character. The worst is a desert course with a waterfall hole -- I can name at least two but I won't. Why not just put an igloo behind a green in Waco, Texas? It makes as much sense.

Anyway, the rolling terrain and arroyos and sense of seclusion make We-Ko-Pa a beauty. It also has a first-class range and practice greens, and a subdued, classy clubhouse.

TPC of Scottsdale

The next day, I teed it up at an old favorite, the TPC of Scottsdale, site of the Phoenix Open. It's always fun to play a course you know well or have often watched the pros play. But despite that, I'd have to say the TPC of Scottsdale is underrated. The track is a lot of fun. It's very playable, because even though it's in the desert, it's not a desert course. Forget that memory imprint of Tiger Woods letting fans move a boulder for him; the TPC is a lot of mounds and grass and bunkers and thin desert trees. And when you stray off the grass, you're pretty much on sand or simple desert hardpan (i.e., still playable).

The TPC's highlight is its final four -- four of the best holes for TV-watching all season and a blast to challenge in person. The 15th is a reachable par-5 with an island green. My drive went right, hit a tree on the fly and kicked into the middle of the fairway. Lucky? In your opinion, sure. In my opinion? Well-deserved. It left me with only a 3-iron to an ample green (gee, I wonder what I would've been able to hit in if my drive had been straight and not a barky -- a 7-iron?), a fairly easy shot in the fall when I'm not rusty. In December, well, never mind. I chunked it into the lake and three-putted to finish off a nice triple. The 16th is the coolest hole on the PGA Tour, a par-3 surrounded by thousands of people in grandstands and on a hillside who begin screaming the nanosecond after a player's clubhead hits the ball. It's the loudest hole in golf, fueled by beer and wagering on greenies. Which makes it the coolest hole in golf and, for others, the most hated. Anyway, it's a nondescript par-3 without the stands and noise, a 9-iron for me to a front pin.

Next up is the 17th, a drivable par-4 (332 yards from the tips, 292 from the blues) with water left of the green. This is where Andrew Magee made his infamous ace during the Phoenix Open, when his drive bounced onto the green while the group ahead was still putting, and his ball glanced off Tom Byrum's prone putter and went into the cup. I snap-hooked a drive left of the water, but despite that horrible shot still had an easy pitch for a two-putt par. The 18th is a dreaded par-4 with water left, a fairway bunker and steep spectator mounds right. If you're wet, you're dead. But if you're right, you're probably not making par, either. The pros usually struggle with this hole during the Open, especially the last few groups on Sunday, with all the pressure. I went water, drop, 4-wood to 10 feet, two putts, bogey. The TPC is also a must-stop if you play in Scottsdale.

Grayhawk

My last stop was the Raptor Course at Grayhawk. You may remember the old Andersen Consulting Match Play tournament, a piecemeal event that played its final round at Grayhawk for a couple of years. Colin Montgomerie actually won the thing in 1998, beating Davis Love, so the next time you hear someone say that Monty has never won in America, you can club that person with this bit of trivia. Grayhawk hits you with a fullcourt press of sweet service, starting at the bag-drop area, and never lets up. The range is very nice, one of those balls-stacked-in-pyramids deals. It has a couple of good practice greens -- although for sheer space, the TPC of Scottsdale's practice area is tough to beat (no wonder so many tour pros who live in the area hang out there). The Raptor also featured the best course conditions. We-Ko-Pa was outstanding, the TPC was pretty good, but the Raptor looked as if it had been vacuumed, not just mowed.

That said, the Raptor is classic, modern-golf-course design. A sculpture, really, dropped in the desert. I hate sculptures (although I like the TPC, even though it's got plenty of fake mounds). The sculpture thing, combined with tighter fairways, deeper bunkers and more severe tiers in the greens, added up to the kind of course that just rubs me the wrong way. I'm a low-handicapper, and though I played my best golf of the three days here, I enjoyed the Raptor much less than the other two courses. An 18-handicapper, I thought, would find the Raptor way too tough no matter what tee boxes he or she played. The bunkers are deep and steeply sloped, causing balls to run to the bottom of them. However, the bunkers I found had little sand at the bottom. That made it difficult to get enough elevation to escape the bunkers or to put any spin on the shot. I don't know if that's a maintenance oversight or if it's just the club's way of penalizing you for finding the bunkers (although I did hole an unlikely bunker shot on the 10th). One more little annoying thing: Each hole has a cute name on the scorecard. Examples: Peek-A-Boo, Wee One, Tom-A-Hawk, Burningbush, Caddywampus, Horace Greeley (Go West, young man -- get it?), and Aces & Eights (the hand Wild Bill Hickock was holding when he was shot). That's a little too cute for me. So instead of referring to the third hole as Kiss 'n Tell, I'll just call it No. 3, if that's OK by you.

Grayhawk draws its share of PGA Tour players and lots of others who love its two tracks. I wouldn't say I hated it, but We-Ko-Pa and TPC were so much more enjoyable that I wouldn't put Grayhawk on my next itinerary. Besides, there's also Talking Stick, a 36-hole complex that Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore designed, and The Raven (if you're staying near Sky Harbor Airport), courses I also really like. Plus, the Valley of the Sun has other courses to explore that I haven't tried. Did I mention the golf course is a great place to be at sunset?

Mailbag

And now, let's go to the Mailbag. ... OK, the Mailbag is a little thin, what with the holidays and people taking time off from recreational activities like, say, reading. So here are a few questions you didn't ask me but probably should have:

What do you think of the Silly Season in general, and, specifically, how did you like the Skills Challenge?

I used to hate the Silly Season, but now I find some of it somewhat interesting. The Skins Game is a major dog, but I'm a sucker for anything with match play or anything in Hawaii, such as the Grand Slam. The Skills Challenge has potential but was poorly packaged. I love the concept, but what was John Elway doing there? Or Bryce Molder, who isn't even an exempt PGA Tour player? I'd say the same for Ty Tryon, but he at least satisfied some curiosity factor. Split over two days, this thing dragged on forever. The telecast was slower than a baseball game ... if that's possible. It should've been edited into a two-hour, one-day show. And whatever Dan Hicks was droning on about was a total snooze; plus, he talked over the wisecracks that Peter Jacobsen and the other players were needling each other with, which would've been interesting to hear.

Is Tiger Woods going to win a major in 2003?

Duh. What kind of stupid question is that? Which major isn't Tiger Woods going to win in 2003?

What's the outlook for the Presidents Cup this year?

Total lack of interest.

Got any good stock tips?

Yeah. Buy AOL Time Warner. My company 401(k) is killing me. At the present rate, I'll be able to retire when I'm 104.

Hey, that wasn't a golf question, was it?

So you noticed. You're good.

Can Annika Sorenstam possibly top her 2002 performance?

Actually, yes. I don't think she'll win 13 times, but if she won all four Grand Slam events in a calendar year, I'd consider that a legitimate topper.

What was the most disappointing thing about golf in 2002?

That Karrie Webb said she wasn't willing to work out in an effort to catch up with the oh-so-buff Sorenstam. I'm sure she didn't mean her comments the way they came out in print -- I know Webb is super competitive; that's one of the things I like about her -- but it made her sound resigned to being No. 2, which I don't believe for a minute. I wish she hadn't said that. The LPGA seems ripe for an athletic, long-hitting superstar who's into fitness the way Woods is and raises the bar for everyone else. I would've thought that's what Sorenstam did the last two years, but based on Webb's comments, perhaps not.

How come you never print my questions?

Because they're stupid.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Gary Van Sickle writes for the magazine's Golf Plus section and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. Click here to send him a question or comment.

 

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