The best public golf near Scottsdale is not in Scottsdale
Drive Shea Boulevard east over the McDowells, through Fountain Hills, and up the Beeline Highway onto the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation, and you reach the 36 holes most serious golfers would pick if they could play only one round on a Scottsdale trip. It is about 35 minutes from Old Town. Nobody regrets the drive.
There are two courses, and neither has a house, a road or a building in view:
- Saguaro, opened in December 2006 by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw: par 71, 6,966 yards, wide corridors laid over the land with hardly any dirt moved, greens a few steps from the next tee, and hundreds of saguaros. Golfweek has ranked it the best course you can play in Arizona in 15 of the last 16 years, by the club’s count.
- Cholla, opened in 2001 by Scottsdale architect Scott Miller: par 72, 7,225 yards, routed up and down the natural washes off the McDowells, with clear landing areas, forced carries and a risk-and-reward decision on every tee shot.
The views are Four Peaks, which is what We-Ko-Pa means in Yavapai, plus Red Mountain, the McDowells and the Superstitions. Our Beyond guide covers the drive and the day around it; this is the booking and the golf.
Booking it, and what it costs
We-Ko-Pa does not use dynamic pricing and does not trade tee times to third-party sellers, which makes it the easiest course in the Valley to budget for: the price on its website is the price. Book online or at 480-836-9000 (toll-free 866-660-7700), up to 90 days ahead. Groups of 12 or more go through the group desk.
The 2026–27 rate sheet, per player, before 9% tax:
| Dates | Resort rate | Arizona ID rate | 36-hole package |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 28 – Oct 11, 2026 | $159 | $129 | $289 |
| Oct 23, 2026 – Jan 7, 2027 | $239 | $179 | $448 |
| Jan 8 – Feb 8, 2027 | $329 | $239 | $619 |
| Feb 9 – 14 (Phoenix Open week) | $359 | $359 | $679 |
| Feb 15 – Apr 25 | $329 | $239 | $619 |
| Apr 26 – May 16 | $239 | $179 | $448 |
| May 17 – Jun 13 | $169 | $139 | $308 |
The Arizona ID rate is only for bookings made seven days out or less, and every player must show an Arizona driver’s license or ID. The 36-hole package covers green fees, cart and range balls for two rounds on the same day or within 72 hours, on either or both courses. The rate sheet lists no separate twilight rate, which is the trade-off for prices that don’t move: the cheap golf here is seasonal, not hourly. If you want the twilight game, the Scottsdale courses play it; We-Ko-Pa’s value is the late-August and late-May shoulder at $159 to $169.
Stay-and-play is with We-Ko-Pa Casino Resort across WeKoPa Way: a package is one night plus one round, priced per night for two, with resort fees and tax extra, booked through the resort concierge at 480-789-5307. The resort’s golf suites, two queen rooms joined by a living room and kitchen, sleep four or five, which is the buddies-trip math. ADERO on the Fountain Hills ridge is the quieter bed ten minutes back.
Overseeding. In 2026 overseeding closed Cholla from October 5 to 22 (prep began September 28) and Saguaro from October 12 to 29. Carts were restricted on both for weeks after, while heavy watering set the rye. Summer aerification closed Cholla July 6 to 19 and Saguaro July 20 to August 2. All of it is on the rates page.
Walking. Saguaro was designed for it: tees and greens share turf complexes and walking paths lead from tee to fairway. The club lends Speedcart push carts. Cholla is a cart course. The local desert rule on both: a ball in the desert may be dropped within two club-lengths of where it crossed the turf line, for one stroke.
Rental clubs are Callaway, $99 a set plus tax, with six logo balls and a glove.
The holes to know. Saguaro opens with a 469-yard par 4, has a 631-yard par-5 4th, a 137-yard par-3 9th and a 255-yard par-3 15th: the full range of what Coore and Crenshaw do with short and long. On Cholla, the club’s showcase holes are the 605-yard par-5 8th and the 578-yard par-5 17th, both asking for a decision on the second shot about a carry over the wash.
Afterwards, the We-Ko-Pa Grille in the clubhouse has a covered patio facing Red Mountain, a fire pit and a real lunch menu; the Saguaro Grille by that course’s first tee does breakfast and lunch whenever Saguaro is open. Dinner is Ember, the steakhouse at the casino resort.
Land that was almost a lake
The reason there is nothing built on either course is the same reason there is a Fort McDowell at all. The Yavapai reservation was created by executive order on September 15, 1903: about 40 square miles on the Verde River around the old Army post of Camp McDowell, a fragment of a homeland that once ran from the desert to the Mogollon Rim.
In the early 1970s the federal government proposed the Orme Dam at the meeting of the Verde and Salt rivers, just south of the reservation. Its lake would have flooded most of Fort McDowell. With little money and a great deal of nerve, the community organized against it, and in 1976 members voted 144 to 57 not to sell their land. On November 12, 1981, Interior Secretary James Watt announced the dam would not be built. The Nation still marks the date every year with a fair and rodeo. In 1992, when FBI agents raided the reservation’s casino and loaded its 349 machines into trucks, members blockaded the road out; the standoff became a turning point for tribal gaming in Arizona.
The golf club came out of the businesses that followed. The Nation chose Scott Miller, a Scottsdale architect who had spent a decade as a design associate with Jack Nicklaus before going out on his own in 1988, and handed him about 450 acres of untouched desert with one instruction: “strive to achieve everlasting beauty and create a sporting intrigue.” Miller picked a tract crossed by washes running off the McDowells, routed most holes up or down them, moved more than half a million cubic yards of earth, and opened Cholla in 2001. It was named one of the best new public courses in the world, and Doug Fredrikson’s clubhouse, with its canyon-like entry and a water-and-fire feature honoring Yavapai basketry, won a Gold Nugget design award in 2002.
Cholla’s success was, in the club’s phrase, the father of the second course. For it the Nation hired Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, who walked the new site for two months before settling on a routing: a front nine that turns clockwise and a back nine that turns counter-clockwise, in and out of hundreds of big saguaros. They moved almost no dirt. Saguaro opened in December 2006 and went straight to the top of the state rankings, where it has stayed.
The land rule held through all of it: the Nation owns the ground and does not sell lots, so there is no real estate on either course. Most of the famous public courses around Scottsdale were built to sell the homes along their fairways. This one wasn’t, and that is why it feels like nowhere else.