No other twelve months in Scottsdale’s modern history landed as many permanent institutions as this one. In a single span the city gained the Mayo Clinic’s first-ever branch, its own supply of Colorado River water, and the stadium golf course that would host the biggest tournament crowd on earth. Each would have headlined a decade on its own; together they made 1987 the city’s great institutional vintage.
The Mayo opening — June 29, chosen for the 126th anniversary of Dr. Will Mayo’s birth — capped years of civic courtship and anchored a medical economy that grew to rival tourism itself. It has a day page of its own.
The water and the golf
The least photogenic 1987 story aged the best. The city’s CAP treatment plant came online, delivering Central Arizona Project water lifted from the Colorado River and diversifying supply beyond the Salt River Project and groundwater. Few noticed at the time; decades later, when the river’s shortages arrived, that early hedge — paired with conservation — was the reason Scottsdale held steady.
The loudest story was golf. The Phoenix Open moved to the new TPC Scottsdale Stadium Course, purpose-built beside the Princess resort for galleries measured in the hundreds of thousands. The January tournament would grow into “The People’s Open” — the best-attended event in the sport — with its 16th hole enclosed into golf’s rowdiest room. Between Mayo, CAP, TPC, and the WestWorld grounds begun the year before, the modern city’s full calendar and infrastructure snapped into place — the high-water mark of the Drinkwater decade.