This LPGA Sanctuary Takes Desert Golf to a New Level

When golfers bear in mind their rounds at desert golf courses, a several defining characteristics tend to linger: rocky places, scattered cacti and sweeping sights of a mountainous landscape. Superstition Mountain’s Prospector Study course in Gold Canyon, Ariz., functions all of that, but it stands out for additional.

The club is dwelling to two courses—the Prospector and the Misplaced Gold—and the non-public facility is located about a 50 percent-hour from Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. The Prospector will host the LPGA’s Travel On Championship appear late March. The club last hosted an LPGA party in 2008, and since then, it’s come to be an even superior fit for the match. Superstition Mountain now boasts a community of eight LPGA Tour associates who connect with the strong practice facility and class compound their residence, together with planet No. 11 Jennifer Kupcho.

The bags of Superstition Mountain’s 8 LPGA players: Charlotte Thomas, Caroline Inglis, Dana Finklestein, Brianno Do, Mina Harigae, Jennifer Kupcho, Jaclyn Lee, and Carlota Ciganda.

Matt Brooks

I lately had the satisfaction of enjoying the Prospector with two of the club’s resident professionals—UCLA alum Brianna Do and 2022 U.S. Open runner-up Mina Harigae. As a event location the class has traditionally made very low successful scores – 18-25 below – and Harigae and Do tore the position up. But navigating the Nicklaus style along with two leading-notch match golfers was not just quality entertainment: it was the ideal way to uncover the course’s correct defenses.

I have to rack my brain to recall the photographs Harigae and Do skipped, but when they did, there was a sample. The Prospector course’s most common defense is its nicely-secured eco-friendly complexes, and they demand you to miss in the correct sites. Considerably formed greens and expertly placed bunkers let for tucked pin placements that are tricky even for professionals.

The 5th eco-friendly on Superstition Mountain’s Prospector training course.

Superstition Mountain

“I consider the hardest thing for men and women when they arrive out and enjoy it for the 1st time is undoubtedly the eco-friendly complexes,” suggests Matt Brooks, the director of golfing who joined our team. “There’s just a large amount of refined movement. There are a good deal of shallow runoffs where by you have to maybe chip, possibly putt.”

Brooks isn’t messing all over. You can’t tell from back again in the fairway, but pass up in the mistaken place all over the greens and you are going to encounter pretty a brief sport problem. The repeated toss-up among a putter and a wedge is real—and it was not just the New York Town customer who has not stepped foot on a observe environmentally friendly in a few months who took on those choices.

The greens are quickly, far too, and the program nonetheless has three months to organization up prior to the finest in the environment come to tee it up.

Each the Prospector and the Dropped Gold courses are Nicklaus styles whilst technically not Nicklaus “signatures.” That label demands a quality, so Nicklaus’s son Jack Jr. intended one gap on the Misplaced Golfing and his other son, Gary, created a single hole on the Prospector.

The Prospector tends to make you wait around for the grand expose of its signature gap, the 18th, which will be an outstanding finisher for today’s best feminine professionals. It is a par 5 that rolls up to the clubhouse with drinking water functioning up the entirety of the remaining facet.

Brooks details to a different gap as potentially the most intriguing on the keep track of.

“I believe the most effective hole is possibly 14, just due to the fact it offers you with a lot of alternatives. You can be intense and test to hit driver, or you can type of lay up to the fairway and have a wedge,” he suggests.

It only requires a few holes to recognize the experience at Superstition Mountain, but for the avid female golfer, the club will get a few more points for its professional shop. Superstition Mountain is lady-owned, and the limitless women’s golfing clothing selections make it abundantly clear. Susan Hladky acquired the property in late 2009, and it has been a haven for feminine golfers—professional and recreational—ever because.