The value round in the middle of town
Every Scottsdale golf trip has a famous course on the itinerary and, if it is planned by someone local, McCormick Ranch on the day after. It is the 36 in the middle of McCormick Ranch, ten minutes from Old Town, public every day of the year, and about half what the north Scottsdale names cost.
There are two courses at 7505 E McCormick Pkwy, both designed by Desmond Muirhead and opened in 1972 with the neighborhood:
- Palm, par 72, 7,044 yards from the back. Lakes are in play on 10 holes, and the 9th was named one of Golf Illustrated’s Top 18 Water Holes of America. The Canadian Tour used to stop here for the Scottsdale Swing.
- Pine, par 72, 7,187 yards, the longer and, while its rebuild goes on, the work in progress.
This is not desert target golf. It is flat, green, lake-lined resort-era golf, with Camelback Mountain and the McDowells in view and mallards on the water. The honest pitch: you won’t post the photos you’d post from Troon North, but you’ll play faster, lose fewer balls and pay less than half.
Booking it, and what it costs
Tee times are booked online on the club’s booking engine or at 480-948-0260. Groups of 16 to 600 go through the tournament desk.
What it costs. Online rates change with the date and the hour. On the club’s booking engine in mid-October 2026, morning tee times from November through early January ran about $129 to $159, early afternoon about $89 to $109, and late twilight about $59 to $69. A January morning on either course was $159. Summer rates weren’t yet posted, but expect them far lower, as everywhere in the Valley.
Twilight comes in two steps. The club says reduced rates may start at about 2 p.m. and drop again at about 4 p.m.; in the 2026 numbers above, that was the difference between $159 and $69. Our tee time and twilight entry explains how the Valley prices the late afternoon.
For regulars. The Ranch Pass for the 2026–27 season takes 25% off the standard rate for tee times booked no more than three days ahead, with two $39 cart-fee-only rounds and half-price range buckets. Annual memberships run November to October with no initiation fee: green fees and range balls included, a $27 cart fee, and member events.
Practice. Range buckets are $17 or $30. The putting green is one of the largest in the Southwest, and there are two chipping areas.
The rebuild. In 2024 the club began a multi-year Year 50 revitalization, re-grassing tees, fairways and greens with drought-tolerant hybrid Bermuda and fixing drainage, nine holes at a time. The Palm’s front nine was finished in 2024 and the Pine’s front nine in 2025; the Pine’s back nine was under way in 2026, including a redesigned green at the notorious 15th, now contoured toward the fairway. Ask when you book whether any holes are being rerouted.
Overseeding isn’t posted on the club’s site; like nearly every course in the Valley, it overseeds in the fall, so call the shop before booking in October.
Afterwards, the clubhouse restaurant is the best reason to book early. It serves breakfast from 6:30 to 11 a.m. and lunch from 11 to 3 (to 2 from Memorial Day to Labor Day, and breakfast all day Sunday), on a patio over the Palm course and the lakes with Camelback beyond. Reserve at 480-948-7010; the patio fills. The Scottsdale Resort next door is the bed for a golf stay, The Vig McCormick Ranch is the neighborhood bar, and the Greenbelt paths are a short walk away.
The ranch that became a golf course
The land was a working ranch long before it was a neighborhood. Merle Cheney started it in 1942; Fowler and Anne McCormick, heirs to the International Harvester and Standard Oil fortunes, bought it in 1944 and grew it to seven square miles of Black Angus, Ayrshire cattle and, Anne’s passion, champion Arabian horses. Her annual show on the ranch’s Paradise Park became the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show, now at WestWorld every February.
After Anne’s death the estate sold 4,236 acres to Kaiser-Aetna in 1970 for $12.1 million, then the largest single parcel sold for a master-planned community inside an American city. Kaiser-Aetna laid it out with lakes, paths and golf at its center, and our McCormick Ranch entry tells how that plan taught Scottsdale to build neighborhoods.
The golf club opened in 1972, designed by Desmond Muirhead. Its lakes are the neighborhood’s lakes, and its fairways are the open space the plan was sold on. It has been public from the first day.
In 1979 Edward Pincus bought the club, and it is still family-owned and family-run, which is rarer in Scottsdale golf than it sounds: most of the courses in this guide are run by Troon, Marriott, a resort company or a tribal enterprise. The family has kept it what it was meant to be, the neighborhood’s course, with breakfast on the patio and twilight rounds after work. At 50, it is getting new grass and new bunkers instead of a new identity.