August 2020
It’s the crown jewel of Desert Highlands, but did you know that its golf course was a trailblazer on several fronts and is still considered as one of the best layouts in Arizona?
We all know the specifics on the golf course – Jack Nicklaus Signature Design that opened for play in 1983. What might not be known is that the golf course pioneered the popularization of the sport in North Scottsdale.
Let’s not get this confused with Desert Forest in Carefree – that Red Lawrence design kickstarted the desert golf craze when it opened in 1962. Desert Highlands placed the first flagstick in North Scottsdale and started the high-end golf trend that has now become the major attraction for this area.
“While other golf courses in the area, and throughout Arizona, have since incorporated the ‘target’ or ‘desert’ concept into their layouts,” Nicklaus notes in Joan C. Fudala’s book ‘A Vision in the Desert: 25th Anniversary Tribute 1982-2008’, “past and present members of Desert Highlands can take pride in the fact that their course and their community experienced it first.”
To commemorate the opening of Desert Highlands, developer Lyle Anderson wanted to host a grand event that would put the club and community on the golf map and give golfers around the world “desert golf fever.” According to Fudala, Nicklaus told Anderson in the early 1980s that he’d been approached to play an inaugural Skins Game, which promoters were planning to hold in Hawaii. Nicklaus balked at the idea unless they brought the event to Desert Highlands, which was still under construction and untested for championship play.
“Don Ohlmeyer, the originator and primary force behind a made-for-television, superstars-of-golf Skins match, flew to Scottsdale to meet with Lyle and see the course,” she writes. “According to Anderson, by the time they got to the 16th hole, Ohlmeyer turned to him and said, ‘Lyle, if you’ll have this [inaugural Skins Game] here, Desert Highlands will become world famous.’ He did, and it did.”
The inaugural Skins Game, which featured Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player and Tom Watson, ended up being a huge success. NBC televised the event with Vin Scully as the announcer – the only notable affiliate not to televise the event was a television station in Philadelphia.
Desert Highlands was also the site of the event in 1984, and benefited greatly from the desert golf fever. According to a Golfweek story, the event ignited the golf course construction boom in Scottsdale that made the city a golf mecca.
“The first year we were there, it had sold only a few houses,” Ohlmeyer is quoted in the story. “By the time we went back for the second year, it [Desert Highlands] was almost sold out.”
By the third year of The Skins Game, there were no more homes to sell at Desert Highlands. The tournament switched locations in 1985 to Bear Creek Golf Club in California and would remain a PGA Tour unofficial event until 2008.
While the Skins Game is now a distant memory, the legacy of that event and Desert Highlands’ reputation as a world-class golf course remains. Numerous national golf publications consistently rank Desert Highlands among the best courses in Arizona. LINKS Magazine named it the third-best course in the state, while Golfweek has rated it among America’s Best 100 Residential Golf Courses since 2010 and Golf Digest tabbed it one of the top desert golf courses in the country.”
I’m proud of what we created at Desert Highlands,” Nicklaus notes in the foreword. “Good people, combined with the aesthetics of nature and architecture, and a commitment to excellence, converge at Desert Highlands to make it such a desirable place to live and play golf.”
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