Vistoso — Scalped!
On Friday afternoon, I played at The Golf Club at Vistoso, located just north of Tucson in Oro Valley, AZ. I went off the 10th tee at around 2:45 PM, playing with a retired golfer from Kansas City. We were behind six foursomes playing 4-man scrambles, so the going was very slow. At the turn, instead of playing the front nine, we played the back again and had the course pretty much to ourselves and were able to play very fast and get 18 in before the sun went down.
Because of rules requiring new golf courses in Tucson to be limited to 45 irrigated acres, only tees, fairways and areas around the greens are grass, the rest is desert scrub (cactus, brush, sand, various desert plants, trees and bushes — quite beautiful, actually). Any balls hit into the desert are pretty much lost unless you get lucky, so golf on this course is target golf. Get it on the fairways and close to the greens, or your ball is in the desert. Fortunately, the fairways are pretty generous, but you must be very controlled on your distances. All tee areas go over desert on their way either to fairways or greens, so accuracy is important, as is distance control. Most par-5 holes consist of two landing areas separated by strips of desert, so distance control is very important. Most of the greens have false fronts and layup areas in front of them.
We only played the back nine, but the par 3 holes were quite challenging, none short, with deep bunkers protecting most of the greens. The most interesting hole on the back nine is the 14th, a short par-4 hole, called “Risky”. The par-4 fairway is divided into two parts separated by desert, giving you the choice of laying up using a short iron off the tee, a 200 yd carry to the fairway ajoining the hole, or for long hitters, going directly at the hole.
While the course is quite beautiful, the course had just been scalped. The fairways were very firm and tee shots ran very long. This caused me trouble on the par-5 holes, as my normal distances were much, much longer than usual due to the scalped fairways. The greens were in pretty good condition, though there were a few bare spots, not unusual at the end of summer.
All in all, a very nice course. I want to play it again on my next visit to Tucson, when the fairways are green and the greens are perfect. Still, I enjoyed the course and would highly recommend it for golfer who want a tough course that demands accuracy and distance control.