Sun City West Golf (Deer Valley)
Golf Course Review Sun City West Golf DEER VALLEY Sun City West Arizona
Reviewed by: jamesg18015, Phoenix, AZ
Walked a quick round at Deer Valley early on a Sunday morning for $50, paired with a friendly SCW resident.
The Phoenix area received a tremendous amount of rain the day before, with much flooding on certain streets. Deer Valley drained pretty well, but some of the ponds were enlarged and the water had submerged some of the cart paths. As a result, Deer Valley had a cart path only rule for the day, but I walked so it did not affect me. Still I was getting good roll in the fairways, green approaches were a little soft, but the greens maintained their firmness.
The Review
The greens were a little slow due to the rain but were immaculate. Same for the green-side aprons. Rough was typical dormant Bermuda. Fairways were in great shape as were the bunkers.
Deer Valley is not the most difficult of the SCW courses – it’s probably the easiest of the 4 regulation courses – but it is the one I enjoy playing the most. I think it is the most fair in that pretty much any time you miss a green on an approach shot, you always have a reasonable chance to get up and down. Over on Trail Ridge and Grandview, some of the green shapes/sizes make this extremely difficult or impossible depending on hole location. Some long hitters take issue with the relatively short length of this course from the tips (6547). I played white (6080) and as a short hitting better than average player, I find the course layout sets up in an enjoyable way for my game.
Potential customers should recognize that this course is part of a middle class retirement community, and therefore they run a pretty efficient/no frills operation to presumably keep costs down. The rental carts tend to be older (the residents mostly have their own anyway), there are no “bag boys” or beverage carts, etc. The benefit of this is excellent course conditions pretty much all year long, and very fair pricing.
Looks like those of us who signed up for the GK event at this course in a few weeks will find some great conditions.
