What is the Scottsdale Links Resort?
Start with what it is: a timeshare. Hilton Vacation Club Scottsdale Links Resort is a vacation-ownership resort of roughly 221 condo-style suites in 19 low buildings beside the TPC Scottsdale Champions Course. Many of the people staying here own points in Hilton Grand Vacations’ clubs and used them for the week. Anyone else can rent the suites the owners don’t use by the night. Most renters will at some point be invited to hear about buying in.
Once you know that, the appeal is easy to see. The suites come in one, two and three bedrooms. The one-bedrooms alone are about 921 square feet, and every suite has a full kitchen, its own washer and dryer, a separate living and dining area, and a balcony or patio. For a family of five, two golf couples, or a snowbird staying a month, that much space at a hotel would cost far more. The grounds are made for staying in. There are two pools and two hot tubs, a playground and splash pad, ping-pong tables, barbecue grills and a fire pit. The golf course is right outside the gate.
Until recently, the sign said Diamond Resorts. When Hilton Grand Vacations bought Diamond in 2021, its resorts started moving to the new Hilton Vacation Club brand, and Scottsdale Links was one of them.
Who it’s for: families, groups, golfers and long-stay visitors who’d rather cook than eat out three times a day. Who should stay elsewhere: anyone who wants daily housekeeping or room service, can’t manage stairs (there are no elevators), or doesn’t want to hear a sales pitch.
How to do the Links right
Know who you’re booking with. Owners book with points through the club, and everyone else rents what’s left. Either way, read the fine print: there’s a nightly resort fee, a deposit at check-in, and a parking policy you should confirm ahead of time. Oversized vehicles, trailers and RVs aren’t allowed.
Handle the sales pitch on your own terms. Guest reviews regularly describe being steered toward a timeshare presentation at or right after check-in, sometimes with gifts offered for attending. It’s optional. If you’re curious, go, but set a time limit. If you’re not, say no at the desk and you won’t need to explain further.
Pick the right suite. The buildings are three stories with no elevators. Families with strollers, older travelers and anyone with heavy golf bags should ask for the ground floor. Balconies on the course side have the views.
Live like a resident. Housekeeping is weekly, not daily. Shop for groceries on the first day, do your laundry in the suite, and grill by the pool. That’s the advantage of staying here over a hotel.
Use the neighborhood. The Champions Course is next door, and Toro in the TPC clubhouse is the best sunset dinner nearby. WestWorld and the Princess are both close. In February, check the Phoenix Open and Barrett-Jackson dates before booking, because they fill the area.
From Diamond to Hilton: a timeshare on the TPC edge
The Scottsdale Links sits on land that golf made valuable. In December 1985, Scottsdale leased Bureau of Reclamation land north of the CAP canal to the PGA Tour. The Stadium Course opened there in 1986, and the Phoenix Open moved in the following year. The Scottsdale Princess rose beside it in 1987, and the surrounding desert filled in with office parks, the Perimeter Center among them, along with hotels. A resort of rentable condos was a natural fit at the course’s edge. The ownership model gave families a stake in a February week in Scottsdale, and they kept coming back.
The resort has been through the same consolidation as the rest of the timeshare industry. Its owners have long traced it through Sunterra, the company formerly known as Signature Resorts, which Diamond Resorts absorbed in 2007. For roughly the next decade and a half, it was “Scottsdale Links Resort by Diamond Resorts.” Next door, TPC’s old Desert Course reopened as the redesigned Champions Course in 2007, the course right outside the suites today.
Then came a bigger deal. Hilton Grand Vacations agreed to buy Diamond in March 2021 and completed the purchase on August 2, 2021. That made HGV the largest upper-upscale timeshare operator, with about 710,000 owners combined. Starting in 2022, HGV began moving Diamond’s leisure resorts to a new Hilton Vacation Club brand. Scottsdale Links got the Hilton name. The buildings, the golf course and the sales desk stayed the same.
The Links is one of a group of vacation-club resorts in north Scottsdale’s event district, along with its Diamond-turned-Hilton sibling, Scottsdale Villa Mirage, the Holiday Inn Club Vacations Scottsdale Resort off Princess Boulevard, and the Sheraton Desert Oasis Villas on Hayden Road. WorldMark Scottsdale is farther south. Together they show that Scottsdale is a place people come back to every year. Owners have returned to these courses, pools and February crowds for years. Their rooms happen to be condos, and their vacations are paid for years in advance.