The best course you probably won’t play
Most golfers who know Pinnacle Peak know it from the south side, from Troon North and the Four Seasons. Estancia is on the other side, on the peak’s northern slope, behind a gate on Dynamite Boulevard: a single Tom Fazio course, opened in 1996, in a gated community of about 600 acres.
It has been decorated from the start. Golf Digest named it the Best New Private Course of 1996, put it on its list of America’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses the next year and has kept it there, and has ranked it Arizona’s best private course every year since 2009. Golfweek, in 2023, had it 17th among America’s modern courses and 2nd among residential ones.
What distinguishes it from the far-north clubs around it is focus. Desert Mountain has seven courses and a small city; Estancia has one course, a caddie program and a clubhouse patio facing the peak. It is member-owned, membership is by invitation only, and the only way onto the first tee is with a member.
How it plays
Fazio routed the course around the base of the peak’s granite. The front nine rims the bottom of the mountain, with big elevation changes and rock formations at the tees and greens; the 10th climbs to higher ground, and the club calls holes 12 through 16 the most demanding stretch, before a closing pair it describes as the beautiful 17th and the exacting 18th. The par-4 2nd is the hole Golf Magazine put on its list of the world’s 500 best in 2000.
The par 3s are the scoring trap. Top 100 Golf Courses singles out all four, the 3rd, 7th and 16th with greens wrapped in dense desert and the 137-yard 11th playing slightly uphill to a green ringed by huge boulders. From the gold tees the course runs 7,314 yards, with seven sets of tees in all; the forward red tees play about 5,200. The greens are bentgrass.
Being a guest
The club asks guests to check in at the security gate on Dynamite Boulevard and warns that GPS sometimes sends people to another entrance. Valet and bag drop are at the clubhouse; guests get a locker and use of the club’s amenities while with their host. The round is expected to take four hours, members answer for their guests’ pace, and caddies are the default, with carts arranged by the host. Phones stay silent, speakers stay off the carts, and tipping is not allowed; staff are thanked through a December holiday fund instead.
Around the club
Estancia’s clubhouse has private dining, a 25-meter heated pool, tennis and pickleball, a fitness center and massage, and a patio that faces Pinnacle Peak and the course. Outside the gate, the best view of the same granite is from the trail at Pinnacle Peak Park, and the nearest tables anyone can book are at Dynamite Grille and the Four Seasons.
Where Estancia fits
Estancia belongs to the second generation of north Scottsdale’s private golf. Desert Highlands, on the peak’s other flank, had shown in 1983 that a Nicklaus course laid through untouched desert could sell a community; Estancia, established in 1995 and opened in 1996, applied the formula with Tom Fazio. It occupies about 150 acres of a parcel of around 600 to 640, depending on who is counting.
The club’s record since is mostly a list of rankings, which is its own kind of history: Golf Digest’s top 100 since 1997, Golfweek’s top 100 since 2005, Arizona’s top private course every year since 2009. It has hosted no tour event that we found, and it publishes no fees; membership is by invitation, and Wikipedia’s entry puts the cap at 298 full golf members.
For the district around it, see the Pinnacle Peak and Troon guide, and for the desert golf at the foot of the same peak that anyone can play, our golf without a membership note.