Golfing at the Geronimo Golf Course, Desert Mountain, Scottsdale Arizona

Geronimo Golf Course:

The most played golf course at Desert Mountain, Geronimo shares a magnificent club house, practice facility, forever views and challenging test of golf with the Coschise course. From the first tee box where you find yourself feeling very alone and very small as you face the extremely daunting long carry over desert terrain and the widest wash at Desert Mountain. A well placed tee shot middle right will give you a long but makeable second shot right of the transition left center which, if you pull your shot, will leave you in a very difficult position to make par. The uphill, heavily sloped and very fast green will force you to make an accurate approach and two putts for par. I have had the good fortune of making birdie and the equally unfortunate double bogie on this hole.

FYI...double is NOT how you want to start this golf course. There are no gimme holes and each shot needs to be well thought out prior to committing. Hole two though relatively tame will test your approach shot accuracy and your ability to putt on a green that will allow your ball to roll off if not perfectly placed. Hole three is in my opinion one of the most difficult greens to hit due to the transition, the bunkering and the shere angles you are forced to attack the green with due to errant approach shots. Far too often you are struggling to save par by virtue of a short approach which gets gobbled up by the deep greenside bunkers middle and left.

Hole four though relatively short will test your nerves left as there is nothing pretty over there between the o.b. desert and the greenside water hazard. A playing partner fearing the water once pushed his approach so badly, his shot found a neighboring swimming pool instead! OOPs!

The holes do not get any easier as you are now faced with a very narrow fairway, huge waste bunkers down and left and a long second shot into a huge, protected green requiring accuracy and distance to hit and hold.

The seventh is a tricky par 3 with limited bailout to the right. Short is disaster and long will surely leave you with a downhill chip from hell.

Hole eight is a makeable birdie hole provided your tee shot is long and preferably right for optimal access to a severely sloped and slick green.

On the tee of hole nine you have to make two very distinct decisions.

1) do you play safe and lay-up short and right or
2) do you ignore the desert looming short left and power a tee shot over the bunker middle left, carry it and watch your ball run another 40 to 50 yards towards the hole very definitely giving you a shot at the green in two and a birdie attempt. HMM!

The back nine provides the willing combatant some very interesting carry shots over boulder fomations, trees and desert outcroppings. The brave of heart will be inclined to let it rip and hope however the prudent player will take into account the lost strokes from poorly managed shots and lost balls in the heavy desert underbrush. Better to be short and safe rather than long and in the junk I always say! Can you tell I am speaking from experience?

Twelve and thirteen require well disciplined tee shots and especially distance and carry control. Short on either of these holes will put you deeply in the desert with little or no chance of recovery.

Coming home, hole seventeen repeats a very similar desision as did nine. Left is the home run and can get you on the green in two. The finishing hole on Geronimo presents the player with optical challenges which will either make of break the round. Whose idea was it to design a finishing hole par 3 over a canyon into boulders, bunkers and desert?

Okay, Jack Nicklaus on a very devious day! All the seasoned players will tell you two things on this hole.
1) Take more club than what the yardage book tells you, and
2) ignore the fact that everyone in the clubhouse is watching you make your shot! Oh yeah, no pressure! The good news is the hole is very much a birdie hole and this writer has achieved that goal more than once. The amazing Cochise/Geronimo clubhouse awaits where you can imbibe and forget the bad shots and glorify the good ones! If only the walls could talk??

Geronimo will leave you wanting to play it again and again.