McDowell Mountain GC, Scottsdale. Randy Heckenkemper (1999) with revisions (2011).

Formerly known as Sanctuary GC at Westworld, this course, which mostly occupies a drainage basin alongside the Arizona canal, was bought by a group including Phil Mickelson and renovated by Heckenkemper to remove a lot of overgrown desert vegetation and make the course more playable. I liked the course well enough prior to the work, but the changes (apart from flipping the nines) did bump it up a notch.

The original 18^th, now the 9th, is a silly 90-degree dogleg where a longer hitter has to either lay up to the corner or try to blast over it, which means blasting over the corner of the only homes on the course. But that’s the only really goofy hole here.

Arizona 5th Decile [2013]