Golf in Glendale

PGA teaching professional Robbie Camacho refines golf skills with corrective advice culled from more than 20 years of experience in the golf industry. After graduating from the San Diego Golf Academy and the PGA of America's Professional Golf Management Program, Robbie has appeared on multiple radio shows to offer a slice of his golf wisdom and weigh in on the tragic extinction of the mashie niblick.

Robbie has taken his talents to Dobson Ranch Golf Course, where a lighted driving range with grass tees, practice putting greens, and a short game area with a practice bunker let him cover any aspect of the game in lessons. Robbie's understanding of proper stance, body alignment, glove bedazzlement, ball position, and balance cultivates more dependable swings for players of all abilities.

Sculpted through the desert and framed by distant mountain peaks, Wickenburg Country Club's 18-hole course roams across 6,320 yards of dazzling terrain. Fresh off an October 2011 overseeding, the course's fairways, greens, and tee boxes blanket the arid terrain with a thick carpet of immaculately mown grass stitched by palm trees, intervening waterways, and tumbleweeds that generously lead golfers to wayward balls. The course bounds over naturally undulating terrain that creates numerous uphill and downhill shots, which gives an advantage to players who trust their yardages and can handle sidehill lies. After rounds, players can continue honing their game at the driving range, check out golf apparel at the pro shop, or drink in views of the rolling, sandstone-hued tundra amid the adobe accents of the clubhouse patio, where clubbers can recapitulate memorable shots or interrogate each other's 9-irons about the veracity of their owners' scorecard.

Course at a Glance:

• 18-hole, par 71 course
• Length of 6,320 yards from the farthest tees
• Course rating of 70.5 from the farthest tees
• Slope rating of 128 from the farthest tees
• Three tee options
• Link to scorecard

Sculpted in the foreground of the Superstition Mountains, Mountain Brook Golf Club charms golfers with a 6,620-yard course that blankets the arid desert with immaculate fairways and greens. Water hazards, crushed-marble sand traps, and desert wilderness await balls that stray from their path due to an open clubface or the desire to snuggle a cactus.

The club's 12-acre practice facility blasts bogeys off scorecards with a full-length grass-tee driving range, a putting green, and two short-game practice areas where players can rehearse greenside chips, bunker shots, and approaches from as far as 100 yards. Brand-name golf apparel and equipment populates the pro shop, which sells merchandise emblazoned with the Mountain Brook Golf Club logo for those looking to obtain a souvenir from their round without having to adopt a rambunctious tumbleweed.

Course at a Glance:

• 18-hole, par 71 course
• Length of 6,620 yards from the farthest tees
• Course rating of 69.4 from the farthest tees
• Three tee options
• Scorecard

Amid the mountainous environs that surround Stonecreek Golf Club, golf pro Doug Grey of Maple Leaf Golf Academy calls upon more than a decade of teaching experience to help players improve any facet of their game. Depending on each golfer's needs, Doug can help straighten out slices and hooks, develop proper preshot alignment, or help players decide how to handle tricky situations, such as getting out of a tough lie behind a tree or distinguishing a golf ball from that hatching thing being protected by an angry goose.

Between Chris Fry, a PGA member and specialist in the biomechanics of the full swing, and Tyler Christensen, an expert on the short game, the instructors at Expert Golf AZ have specialty expertise that covers any and all aspects of the game. The teaching duo has conducted more than 40,000 private lessons, gaining a wealth of experience harmonizing swing changes to match individual body motions and abilities.

Students can take lessons at three courses: Silverado Golf Club, McCormick Ranch Golf Club, and Flagstaff Ranch Golf Club. At each of these locales, a menu of services range from private lessons—complete with V1 Pro video analysis and Flightscope X2 launch monitoring—to on-course coaching, reserved for serious golfers who need assistance with competitive strategy or someone to bring them orange slices at the turn.

Spending a day among both mountain and desert nature preserves may seem like the kind of scenic variety available only to the most intrepid outdoorsmen, but at Lookout Mountain Golf Club, it’s all in a day at the links. The 18-hole, 6,535-yard course plots an emerald path through the rugged, scrupulously preserved Sonoran Desert terrain in an area surrounded by the red-rock faces of the Phoenix Mountain preserve and covert chupacabras training to be caddies. Though the desert looms on the perimeters of most holes, the course also boasts one water-kissed hole on the back nine.

Operated by the Pointe Hilton Tapatio Cliffs Resort, Lookout Mountain Golf Club rests alongside several first-rate dining options and spa and salon facilities. In addition, the resort’s 547 two-room suites offer modern amenities including in-room WiFi, two televisions, and hypobaric chambers for sand wedges who have their backs snapped in half during an on-course fit of rage.