Two courses, two eras
Camelback Golf Club belongs to the JW Marriott Camelback Inn, the resort that opened in 1936, but it isn’t at the Inn. It sits about 3.5 miles away at 7847 N Mockingbird Ln, on the northeast side of Mummy Mountain, and the resort runs a shuttle. It is open to the public.
The two courses could hardly be more different:
- Ambiente, par 72, 7,221 yards: Jason Straka’s 2013 rebuild of the old Indian Bend course, a $10 million job that lowered the flood channel, raised the holes and replaced most of the irrigated lawn with desert. It has elevation, wash corridors and big bunkering, and it is the course people come for.
- Padre, par 72, 6,903 yards: Arthur Hills’s tree-lined course with lakes and mountain views. The friendlier round, and the one the old guard prefers.
The honest advice: if you play one, play Ambiente. If you are staying at the Inn for a few days, play both; they are different enough that it doesn’t feel like playing the same club twice. Either way, this is resort golf ten minutes from Old Town, which the big desert courses up north can’t say.
Booking it, and what it costs
Booking windows: Camelback Inn guests can book 90 days ahead, the general public 60 days. Book online or at the golf shop, 480-596-7050. Walk-ons are welcome when there is room. Solo golfers must call to arrange a single tee time. First tee times are 6:00 a.m. on weekends and 6:30 on weekdays; the last goes off at 4 p.m.
The price is not posted; the booking page shows the rate for your date. Things that are fixed: there are no nine-hole rates, an extra cart for your group is $45, and a non-golfer can ride along (the $45 applies if they need their own cart). Juniors under 17 who can’t drive a cart play at a reduced fee before 3 p.m. and free after 3 p.m. with a paying adult.
Twilight is when the club gets cheaper in small ways: rental clubs drop from $80 to $60, and juniors play free. The general pattern of afternoon rates is in our tee time and twilight entry.
Practice. The all-grass range and putting green open 30 minutes before the first tee time and close at 5 p.m. A full-day pass, before noon, is $80, and a half-day pass after noon $50; Inn guests use them free as part of the resort fee. Range balls come with a tee time.
Stay-and-play. The Inn’s Unlimited Golf for Two package bundles daily golf for two with carts, daily breakfast at Rita’s Cantina and unlimited use of the practice facilities. Rates are per room, per night, with blackout dates. Ask for the golf shuttle when you book.
Overseeding. In 2026 the club overseeded in turn: Padre closed September 28 to October 19, then was cart path only October 20 to November 5; Ambiente closed October 12 to November 5, then cart path only November 6 to 19. During the overlap week, October 12 to 19, the golf shop kept short hours and Tavern 37 closed. If you are coming in October, that week is the one to avoid.
Pace and dress. The club expects 4 hours 15 minutes on Ambiente and 4 hours 10 on Padre. Men wear athletic shoes, a collared shirt and golf pants or Bermuda shorts; women may wear collared or collarless shirts and athletic bottoms. No denim or T-shirts.
Afterwards, Tavern 37 in the clubhouse pours craft beer, local spirits and cocktails with a modern-classics menu. For dinner, go back to the Inn: Lincoln Steakhouse & Bar is its signature room. The Phoenician’s course is ten minutes south if you want a third round in the same corner of town.
The resort course rebuilt in a flood channel
The Camelback Inn opened on December 15, 1936, when Jack Stewart and John C. Lincoln gambled on a desert resort for 77 guests in the middle of the Depression. It stayed a seasonal winter retreat for three decades. When Marriott bought it in 1968, it had 170 rooms and no air conditioning. Bill Marriott had first stayed there with his parents at 16, and under Marriott the Inn grew into a full resort with convention space, a spa and, like every Arizona resort of the era, golf.
The golf came in two pieces on land northeast of Mummy Mountain, along the Indian Bend Wash, the same flood channel that runs south to become Scottsdale’s Greenbelt. In the late 1970s Arthur Jack Snyder added the Indian Bend course down the wash; the other course is today’s Padre, now credited to Arthur Hills.
By the 2000s the Indian Bend course had a problem its architect, Jason Straka of Hurdzan Fry Environmental Golf Design, described plainly: it was flat, visually dull and strategically thin, with 200 acres of irrigated turf and non-native trees, small and poorly drained tees and greens, and a routing that sat in a desert floodway, so that after a storm it was unplayable for days. Keeping the old out-and-back corridor on either side of the wash, Straka lowered the wash by two to twelve feet, moved 365,000 cubic yards of material, and used it to raise the playing surfaces. The fill gave the course the elevation it never had, the lowered channel carries the water, and much of the irrigated turf went back to desert.
The result, Ambiente, opened in November 2013 after a $10 million project, and it gave the club a course people book on purpose rather than for convenience. Padre stayed as the counterpoint, the shaded, lake-lined round that feels like the Camelback Inn’s older self. That is the pleasure of the place: the same morning shuttle can take you to either decade.