With a mid-morning tee time set at Wildhorse yesterday, it seemed like a good opportunity to squeeze in an early morning round at Desert Willow. They didn't have any early enough tee times available, ... Continue »

With a mid-morning tee time set at Wildhorse yesterday, it seemed like a good opportunity to squeeze in an early morning round at Desert Willow. They didn't have any early enough tee times available, but I called a few days before and the pro shop guy was great. He let me know there's a men's club scramble that goes off every Saturday morning, but if I got there early enough he'd get me out ahead of them. He held true to that promise and I was off by myself at first light (just after 6:30 and it was still rather dark). Only thing that slowed me down was a few back nine players after I made my turn, but they let me through and I was finished in about 1.5 hours. $35 weekend morning rack rate. The course was in excellent shape, and by far the best of the three I played during this trip. I was really impressed with the post-overseed conditions. It was lush, green and nicely manicured from edge to edge. Both nines loop out and back in wide greenbelts and they keep the rough in the open spaces between the holes beautiful. The greens were receptive and rolling at medium-fast speeds. They were a little pocked from old repaired ball marks that hadn't fully healed, but they still ran pretty smooth on putts. I wasn't in any bunkers, but they looked nice. The conditions probably outshined the course, but this is still a fun little executive track (par-60) geared toward the senior community. It's pretty wide open and forgiving, so it's a good confidence builder without feeling too boring at any point. Good mix of par-3s with a wide range of hole lengths and a handful of short par-4s in the mix.