Scottsdale Silverado Golf Club

As a local this place is awesome. Very playable course. Conditions usually pretty solid. Back 9 more scenic. Summer pass is goated. Cart guys are courteous and nice. Cart girl is a riot.

Played here while on a bachelor party to Scottsdale and thoroughly enjoyed my time here. We played at 7:40 and 7:50 AM and the staff was very accommodating for our two groups. Course was in fantastic shape. Fast greens and nicely mown fairways. The views were great too. The course is reasonably priced for Scottsdale in peak season (I think we paid ~$170 a man). Course is forgiving enough for beginners and novices to enjoy but provides enough difficulty and risk/reward opportunities to challenge the better golfers. Would love to play here again on my next trip to Scottsdale.

I golfed here today and it was a really poor experience. The course is in terrible shape. The ground is as hard as asphalt, there was debris all over tee boxes and greens, and it was the slowest round of golf I’ve played in years. We left after 9 holes because it took 3 hours and that’s not an over-exaggeration. On their website, the state they don’t allow anything more than foursomes and that everyone must adhere to a 4 hr pace of play. There was a group of 5 ahead of us and a group of 8 a few groups later. We had numerous clog ups where we finished a hole and didn’t tee off for another 20 minutes. On 1 of the par 3’s, we literally watched 3 groups play the hole while we waited. We called the staff and told them about it, they sent someone out who was very kind, but basically said there was nothing they could do about it. This all stems from having tee times separated by 8 mins. The staff was friendly, but they didn’t enforce their own rules and it cost $130 to play this at our tee time. No starters, no course marshall’s, etc. I will say, that it was greatly appreciated that they refunded our group half of our greens fees at the turn so we could stop playing as we had no interest in a 6 hour round. If I were you, I would consider spending more money to play a nice course than throwing $130 at this place.

If you want a masterclass in how a fairly easy layout can still psychologically dismantle a person, look no further than Silverado Golf Club. Carved out along Scottsdale's Indian Bend Wash and opening its fairways in 2000 under the design hand of the Gilmore-Graves Architectural Design Company, this par-70 course lulls you into a false sense of security with its manageable yardage and approachable tracks. But the course has a sneaky way of biting back, largely thanks to the unforgiving hardpan lies lurking just off the short grass that make distance control and clean contact with the short game an absolute nightmare. That underlying tension follows you right up until you stagger your way to the 18th tee, where Silverado turns its final stanza into a psychological chamber of horrors. Closing a round with a short par-3 over water sounds harmless on paper, but because your score actually matters at this point, the pressure grips your throat. Rational thought tells you the shot should be a breeze, yet standing on the elevated tee box looking down at the pond and menacing bunkers, your hands start shaking, proving once again that a friendly course can still manufacture maximum panic when the scorecard is on the line.

It was great until the last 4 hole. The foursome in front of us just didn't care that it was back up. There were a foursome behind us and another foursome behind them that quit. Meanwhile, the foursome in front of us is a hole or 2 behind. Nobody was in front of them. None at all, to be fair. There was a Marshall, but I don't think those guys listened. Lack of etiquette. Hopefully, our next experiences will be much more pleasant. Shout out to Ivan and his grandson from Iowa. It was a pleasure playing with you both.