Scottsdale: The desert playground where luxury meets world-class golf

Scottsdale pairs championship fairways with sweeping desert landscapes, design-led resorts, indulgent spas and a dining scene shaped by some of America’s most acclaimed chefs. In Arizona’s Valley of the Sun, luxury and outdoor living converge in a setting where style, sunshine and world-class golf come effortlessly together

There are 250 world-class golf courses in Scottsdale, Arizona, and they’re all within 70 kilometres of each other. Nowhere on Earth offers this saturation of this level of championship golf courses and resorts. 

And consider too, these courses aren’t just random collections of 18 golf holes: they’re works of green-coloured art, designed by the world’s best golf course designers, crafted intricately in and amongst the Sonoran Desert and its rugged mountains and foothills. 

And because all this golf is located in a desert, it barely rains. The other great golfing destinations of the world – like Scotland, and Ireland, even Melbourne – are infamous for their inclement weather, but not in Scottsdale where there are 330 days of sunshine in an average year.

The Beverly Hills of the desert

But these factors are just part of the appeal of Scottsdale to luxury travellers who play golf. For Scottsdale is the desert’s most glamorous playground. It’s long been dubbed ‘the Beverly Hills of the desert’. Though you might just as easily call it Arizona’s take on California’s Palm Springs – there’s that same sense of ‘nostalgic chic’ and old-world wonder.

Barely 15 minutes’ drive from the airport, Old Hollywood stars like Elizabeth Taylor, John Wayne and Lucille Ball were regulars at one of Scottsdale’s most iconic resorts: the mid-Century Desert Modernist Mountain Shadows Resort. This was where Hollywood came to be seen in the ‘60s and ‘70s – and that same retro charm permeates through it today. There’s two lagoon-style pools and bars overlooking a billion-year-old mountain range out back, and golfers have an 18-hole course running right through the resort, a few metres from their rooms.

Golf is everywhere, but there’s a whole lot more 

But there’s actually over 70 luxury resorts and hotels throughout Scottsdale, in an area known as ‘The Valley Of The Sun’. All are located close to golf courses, while many are built in amongst the courses themselves. At Boulders Resort & Spa, you have to give way to golfers teeing off around you on your entry into its 500 hectare estate. The golf holes are the prime landscaping feature of the resort; lush green fairways run beside duck ponds and up into the massive stacked boulders which surround the resort’s lodge. At night, you can walk around the course under the stars and listen to coyotes and bobcats call out.

A short drive away, Four Seasons Scottsdale is also designed with the same subtle desert charm. Its adobe brick casitas and villas blend into a desert covered with enormous Saguaro cacti, which grow nowhere else on Earth. Two championship golf courses (Troon North) are a five minute shuttle ride away. They’re carved out from the high Sonoran desert, requiring tee shots across chasms of desert scrubs onto greens built along the edges of mountains. 

Food and art and spas… and non-golfing partners

Most iconic international golf destinations tend to attract groups of golfers intent on doing little else but playing golf; because they usually offer not much beyond the course. Scottsdale is different – which makes it the perfect place to come for couples with different interests. If you’re a mad-keen golfer and your partner isn’t (or vice versa), Scottsdale is the place to have a golf holiday which isn’t just a golf holiday. 

There are over 800 restaurants spread across Scottsdale – many with James Beard (the American equivalent of the Michelin rating system) recognised chefs. There’s every kind of global cuisine here, and just about everywhere offers al fresco dining to take advantage of the weather. Some of the best food is in Old Scottsdale Town – the region’s main downtown area – try The Mission, for its Latin American food fused with French flavours, under the guidance of co-owner/ executive chef, Matt Carter, who trained at one of America’s most iconic restaurants, French Laundry (in Napa Valley). Or high-end Indian cuisine at Indibar, with meals prepared by a chef (Nigel Lobo) who works with the chefs from Spain’s El Bulli, which for five years was the world’s best restaurant.

Old Scottsdale Town has 50 art galleries, seven museums and two performance art theatres as well. And it’s Arizona’s best-known nightlife area, with over 100 lounge, craft cocktail and night-clubs. Plus Scottsdale is the resort and day spa capital of the US – there are more resort and day spas per capita than any other American city. There are 50 resort and day spas spread across a region famous for indigenous techniques that go back hundreds of years to Native Americans who believe the Sonoran Desert has natural healing properties. 

Scottsdale is the resort and day spa capital of the US – there are more resort and day spas per capita than any other American city

The complete golf package 

Glamour in Scottsdale seems to come without pretence. Maybe the desert is a leveller; because luxury golf resorts here aren’t the domain of the old money crowd, as they can be through Europe and the UK. Instead there’s a subtlety about opulence in Scottsdale. Being here is certainly glamorous, but it’s an effortless kind of razzle-dazzle. And anyway, everyone’s focused on that landscape, so no one notices what you’re wearing.

Journey notes

Play golf at Troon North (beside Four Seasons) on one of two courses, troonnorthgolf.com

The high season for Scottsdale is November to April, when average temperatures range from 10 to 25 degrees.

The low season for Scottsdale is May to October, when it’s hot and rainier, but prices can be 50 percent less than the high season. Consider the shoulder seasons for less crowds with good weather.