DC Ranch’s own club, owned by its members
The club people search for as “DC Ranch Country Club” calls itself The Country Club at DC Ranch, and it is the private, member-owned club at the center of DC Ranch, on Thompson Peak Parkway at the foot of the McDowell Mountains.
Its 18-hole course is a Tom Lehman and John Fought design, as both the club and DC Ranch describe it today, running across the desert floor and climbing toward the mountains, “framed by rock face and open sky,” in the club’s words. The Hacienda Clubhouse is decorated with leather, hammered iron and relics of working cowboys, a nod to the DC brand registered on this range in 1885, and it is a full family club: six tennis courts, pickleball, a resort pool with the Ranch House Cantina, a fitness center, a kids’ club and teen rooms, the Mixed Grill dining room and a wine room.
It has a real competitive record for a members’ club: the Arizona Amateur in 2011 and 2016, and U.S. Women’s Open sectional qualifying in 2017.
It is not to be confused with the Silverleaf Club, the separate, newer private club in the gated canyons above, with a Tom Weiskopf course. Both are DC Ranch; only one is “the Country Club.”
Membership, guests and what it costs
Two categories are open: Golf Equity and Clubhouse. Membership is not tied to real estate, so you do not need to own in DC Ranch to join. A golf membership covers unlimited golf and practice for the member, spouse and unmarried children under 24, plus the clubhouse, pool, fitness and tennis.
Market-based pricing. Golf memberships are equity, and the club uses market-based pricing: members selling their memberships set the price, so the initiation moves with demand. A North Scottsdale real-estate team’s guide, updated in 2026, reports:
- Golf: initiations recently selling at $290,000-plus; dues $1,990 a month, plus a $119 “Phase 2” assessment and $145 capital dues
- Clubhouse: $35,000 initiation; dues about $910 for a family or $745 single, plus smaller assessments
- Sports social: $75,000, not accepting applications
Treat those as a guide and confirm with the membership office at (480) 342-7201; the club takes membership and tour requests through its website.
Guests come with a member. The club’s dress code, revised in August 2025, requires “proper country club attire” in the clubhouse dining rooms after 10 a.m.: collared shirts for men (untucked is fine if the shirt is designed for it), golf or dress shorts, and dress denim allowed for everyone, ripped denim discouraged. The club keeps a few loaner collared shirts for guests who arrive in the wrong one. The Ranch House by the pool is casual.
For visitors without an invitation, DC Ranch’s public side is next door. Market Street at DC Ranch on Pima Road has Market Street Kitchen, The Living Room, Pescada and Fleming’s; DC Ranch Park is the community’s public park; and the Gateway Trailhead into the McDowell Sonoran Preserve is a few minutes away. The closest public course is McDowell Mountain Golf Club, the former Sanctuary, a few miles south.
A cattle brand, a master plan and a members’ club
The name goes back to 1885, when Dr. William Dorr Crosby registered the DC brand that later marked cattle on this range at the base of the McDowells, until the mid-1990s. The landowners formed a partnership with DMB in the 1980s, and DMB broke ground on DC Ranch in 1997, with the first homeowners moving into the Desert Camp neighborhood in 1998. In 1998, too, DMB sold more than 4,600 acres of the upper Windgate Pass area to the City of Scottsdale for what became the heart of the McDowell Sonoran Preserve, which is why the community, and its club, back onto protected desert instead of more houses. Our DC Ranch lexicon entry has the brand story.
The Country Club is the community’s golf and social center, and today it belongs to its members. That ownership shows in the details: market-based equity pricing, a scholarship foundation, a clubhouse renovated for $4 million in 2014, and a $600,000-plus bunker rebuild the same summer that relined every greenside bunker, repaired the drainage and added ramps to make the steep ones playable, with the old sand reused as top dressing.
The course’s designers give it a particular pedigree. Tom Lehman won the 1996 Open Championship; John Fought won the 1977 U.S. Amateur and became a golf architect. Their names on the course, and the Arizona Golf Association’s choice of the club for the state amateur twice, are the reason good players covet a game here. For everyone else, the DC Ranch and McDowell Mountain Ranch guide covers the district, and golf without a membership the courses you can book.