Sanctuary did not close: it changed its name
The course people still search for as Sanctuary Golf Course is open, at the same address, as McDowell Mountain Golf Club: 10690 E Sheena Dr, in the foothills of north Scottsdale near McDowell Mountain Ranch, with the McDowells rising behind it. Map data still lists “Sanctuary Golf Course” as its old name; the club itself now uses only the new one.
It is a public, par-72 championship course of 7,118 yards from the back, with seven sets of tees, designed by Randy Heckenkemper, the architect of the Champions Course at TPC Scottsdale. In 2011 Heckenkemper came back to oversee a major renovation: wider playing corridors, new strategic waste bunkers and bigger teeing areas, all meant to keep the course a test for good players and fair to everyone else.
Today Arcis Golf owns and operates it, alongside Continental in south Scottsdale and the private Ancala Country Club, and it has a restaurant worth the drive on its own, Rossa Kitchen and Patio.
The pitch is simple. This is real desert golf, full length and in the foothills, without a gate, a member sponsor or the price of the most famous names up the road.
Booking, practice and Rossa
Tee times are public and booked online through Arcis Golf, or by phone at (480) 502-8200. The club does not publish a rate card; rates move with the date and hour. The Arcis Players’ Card, on presale through November 1, 2026 with bonus rounds for early buyers, lowers the rate, and the Arcis Players’ Prime and Club memberships add earlier booking and preferred rates here and at Arcis’s other Phoenix-area clubs.
The course plays 7,118 yards at par 72 from the tips, but seven tee options make it whatever length you need. The 2011 work is why it is friendlier than it looks from the first tee: the corridors are wider than on many desert courses and the waste bunkers catch shots that would otherwise be lost in the scrub. The club does not post a walking policy; assume a cart in a foothills routing and ask if you want to walk.
Practice: a 20-station grass range, a short-game area with three chipping greens, a practice bunker and a large putting green. Buckets are $10 (20 to 30 balls) and $20 (60 to 70). The range was closed for renovation until October 2026, so check before relying on it; when open it runs from sunrise, closing at 3:30 p.m. on Mondays.
Rossa Kitchen and Patio is a neighborhood Italian room built around a Neapolitan wood-fired oven: pizzas, salads, sandwiches and family-style plates, a full bar with Italian aperitifs, and an open-air patio with fireplaces and a view across Scottsdale to Camelback. It takes reservations and does not require a tee time.
Overseeding. In 2026 Rossa ran reduced overseed hours from September 27 to October 15, the window when the course was overseeded and cart-limited. Plan fall trips for after mid-October; see overseeding and cart path only.
Why the old name still matters
Golf courses in Scottsdale change hands and names often, and the old name lingers longest in search boxes, in old directions and in the memories of people who played it. That is the case here. The course was Sanctuary, a Heckenkemper design in the desert below the McDowells; today it is McDowell Mountain Golf Club, and the club dates its major renovation to 2011. That renovation, as the club describes it, was Heckenkemper’s own revision of his work: open up the playing corridors, add waste bunkers that give a recovery shot rather than a lost ball, and build more teeing ground so the course could be played at very different lengths.
It is a useful example of how desert golf has softened. Early desert target courses asked golfers to carry the ball from one island of grass to the next; the stated aim of the 2011 work here was the opposite, a course that still tests a low handicap but lets everyone else find the ball and finish the round.
Its location also makes it useful. The course is a few minutes from McDowell Mountain Ranch Park and the Gateway Trailhead into the McDowell Sonoran Preserve, so a morning hike and an afternoon round fit in the same day. Market Street at DC Ranch, with Market Street Kitchen, is the nearest cluster of restaurants beyond Rossa, and the private Country Club at DC Ranch is a few miles north. Our DC Ranch and McDowell Mountain Ranch guide covers the district, and the Princess and WestWorld guide the flat country to the west.