WeKoPa Resort & Conference Center
A feature from the IAGTO Directory 2015
WeKoPa Resort & Conference Center
WeKoPa Resort & Conference Center Spectacular golf in the Sonoran Desert The WeKoPa Experience begins miles from the golf club, where the city ends and the beautiful Sonoran Desert begins. Here at WeKoPa Resort & Conference Center, the landscape is open, the colours are more vibrant and the mountains are seemingly within an arm’s reach away. Upon arrival, golfers are greeted by WeKoPa’s award-winning clubhouse that rises from its desert surroundings. Inspired by the Yavapai culture, the clubhouse features a “desert vernacular” styling with unique detail contributions that draw inspiration from the natural environment. Sloped entry walls and a wood beam canopy create a canyon-like feel entryway, followed by a fire feature that is designed to symbolise the importance of woven baskets within the Yavapai culture. The clubhouse is replete with stylized detailing and yields spectacular views of the McDowell Mountains, Red Mountain, Four Peaks and the Superstitions. From the moment golfers arrive until the time they leave us, they receive the kind of customer service that has helped make the WeKoPa Experience so special for every one of our guests. Whether they are a “local,” or in the valley on business or pleasure, our staff is here to help make their visit memorable. Unlike other Arizona golf courses, there are no homes, condos or town homes lining these fairways. At WeKoPa, the Sonoran Desert is your neighbor and the term “high-rise” is either used to describe the ancient saguaros in the foreground or the magnificent mountains in the distance. In fact, the views are so spectacular at WeKoPa that the sound, strategic playing value of the holes could possibly get overlooked. The variety in the routing and placing of holes will keep all levels of golfers entertained from opening tee shot to final tap-in. Both courses – Cholla and Saguaro – feature an ideal blend of doglegs and straight holes, a mix of slender and ample fairways, a balance between benign and rugged green complexes. Yet without exception, both courses offer a host of shot-making options and plenty of grassy bail-out areas when the occasional shot gets away. WeKoPa’s two courses have much in common; both are meticulously maintained, both have received high praise from the golf media and consumers alike and both offer a tranquil golf experience free of houses and roads, thus preserving the unobstructed mountain views of the Sonoran Desert. That is where the similarities end. The Cholla course is recognised as the reference course for the quintessential target-style desert golf course. Whereas the Saguaro course was designed as a more traditional-style golf course where greens are close to tees, ideal for walking, and the course follows the natural movement of the land.
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WeKoPa Resort & Conference Center
Cholla course
It was Scott who selected a tract of land that is dominated by a series of natural desert washes originating in the nearby McDowell Mountains. And it is within these washes that Scott chose to route the majority of his golf holes, either “up or down” these native waterways, and displayed an amazing imagination in moving some 500,000-plus cubic yards of material to create the wonderful course we enjoy today.
© Lonna Tucker
The Cholla course was designed and built in 2000 and 2001 by noted golf course architect Scott Miller, who tutored for 10 years as a design associate with Nicklaus Design before starting his own design firm in Scottsdale, Arizona, in 1988.
© Lonna Tucker
It is a testimonial to Scott that any and all of the landforms his team built have been so expertly created that a stranger playing the course today is unable to distinguish them from nature itself. And it is within the unique environment of these lower elevations that the player is able to view and truly experience the many and varied forms of native desert plant life such as the cacti, creosote, brittle bush and the Mesquite and Palo Verde trees. While the Cholla course can play to a demanding championship length of 7,240 yards, the other four sets of available tee boxes and the 84 acres of manicured turf grass allow for a multiple of options if a player so chooses, to avoid the “heroic path” that constantly tempts all golfers.
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WeKoPa Resort & Conference Center
Saguaro course
© Lonna Tucker
The immense popularity and success of the Cholla course was the “father of the idea” to create yet another unique golf experience at WeKoPa. The internationally-renowned design team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw was engaged to create the Saguaro course in 2005 and 2006 with the intention of providing a completely different look and feel to the Cholla course. Their respect and enthusiasm of the natural beauty of the desert was evidenced by the fact they continuously walked the land of the new golf site for two months in an effort to locate the most desirable green sites before deciding upon their routing plan. They ultimately decided upon the present-day routing plan because it afforded them a front nine loop moving clockwise and a back nine that played in a counterclockwise motion moving in and out of the hundreds of large Saguaro cacti that dominate this site.
This routing also allowed for a sufficient blend of short and long par 4 holes along with an interesting collection of four par 3 holes running in all four directions of the compass playing to a wide array of distances. And finally, this routing plan reveals the rather important fact: the prevailing south-westerly wind direction blows across or sideways to the majority of the holes while the course plays across the natural drainage direction of the site. Saguaro is yet another excellent example of Coore and Crenshaw’s design philosophy that the “lay of the land” dictates their end result because they moved less than 25,000 cubic yards of material to create 68 acres of turf grass that plays to a championship yardage of less than 7,000 yards. We invite golfers to play both courses at WeKoPa so that they can experience these two very distinct layouts first-hand.
Contact details WeKoPa Resort & Conference Center 10438 North Fort McDowell Road Scottsdale/Fountain Hills Arizona 85264
Tel: +1 480 789 5300 Fax: +1 480 789 5333 cpolo@wekoparesort.com www.wekoparesort.com
Copy supplied by WeKoPa Resort & Conference Center 76
Cover Photo: Bunga Raya Course, Saujana Golf & Countr y Club, Malaysia • www.saujana.com.my
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