The short course with the long views
Rancho Mañana is the golf course at the quiet end of Cave Creek, where Rancho Mañana Boulevard leaves the saloon strip and climbs toward Black Mountain. It is a public, 18-hole, par-70 course on the land of a 1940s dude ranch, and it is the definition of a course that plays harder than its card.
The holes run up and down the old ranch’s hills and across its washes. Fairways are narrow, several tee shots are blind or semi-blind, and the elevation changes are big enough that the yardage on the card is only a suggestion: the downhill par-3 7th plays a club or two shorter than it measures, and the 9th drops so far that the course’s advice is to “just hit it out and let it drop.” Players’ own reviews say it best: “a short course, but it’s scenic and very hard,” and “may be the tightest golf course I have ever played.”
The compensation is the scenery. From the 6th tee you can look back to Camelback, Mummy Mountain, Piestewa Peak and Lookout Mountain, the whole Valley laid out to the south, and the Tonto National Forest fills the view the other way. Reviewers mention the wildlife, and rounds where they never saw the group ahead or behind.
Rates, booking, the range and the food
Tee times are public, online or at (480) 488-0398; members book separately. Rates float by date and hour and include the cart. Checked in October 2026:
- Wednesday, October 21: about $57 to $123.
- Thursday, November 12: about $55 to $127.
- Saturday, November 14: about $55 to $144.
- Tuesday, December 15: about $55 to $121.
The low end is the late-afternoon twilight rate, and on a course this pretty it is the one to book. The club does not post a walking policy online, and the hills make a cart the sensible choice.
Practice: a range and putting green beside the first tee. Rentals are Ping and Mizuno sets at $60 a round; left-handed sets are limited, so reserve. Lessons run in 30-minute and one-hour blocks.
Memberships exist for locals who play often, with discounted guest fees, range balls and member events.
Food. Tonto Bar & Grill is the clubhouse restaurant, in the old ranch buildings, with Southwestern food and a patio over the course; it is open to anyone and the best dinner in town. La Oasis, by the range and first tee, does grab-and-go breakfast and lunch from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., and a food and drink truck works the course from 7:45 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Overseeding. The course was taking tee times through late October 2026, and it does not post overseed dates online; call before planning an early-October round.
From dude ranch to golf club
Rancho Mañana began in the 1940s as one of the dude ranches that drew winter visitors to the desert north of Phoenix to ride, eat around a fire and look at the mountains. The Western painter Lon Megargee was a frequent guest, and the club credits his connection with shaping the artistic culture of the area. Our dude ranch entry tells the wider story of how those ranches came and went.
In the 1980s, after the ranch’s heyday, the land was redeveloped around an 18-hole, par-70 golf course that keeps the hills and washes the ranch rode over. The Allred family took ownership in the early 2000s, and Mike Allred has run the course since. It is now part of their Arizona Hideaway Collection, which also owns the Hermosa Inn, Megargee’s own former home in Paradise Valley, along with Tubac Golf Resort and Sedona Golf Resort. The family’s line on all of them is preserving the history of an old place while running it to a modern standard, and here that shows in the clubhouse and restaurant built into the ranch site.
The neighbors are the Hilton Vacation Club Rancho Mañana villas, the closest place to stay if you want to play here and eat at Tonto without driving, and Frontier Town at the foot of the boulevard. For more Cave Creek golf, Dove Valley Ranch is ten minutes southwest, a longer and more forgiving course by Robert Trent Jones Jr. For an afternoon off the course, Cave Creek Regional Park has the trails and the Buffalo Chip has the beer.