The Rim Golf Club
Played the Rim Golf Club back in 2013 with my buddies Ronnie, Johnny Cocktails, and Garrett. The Rim is about an hour plus northeast from Scottsdale up into the mountains. It sits at 5,000 ft. elevation so it is a vastly different golf experience than courses in the valley or even courses in the close-in desert mountains. You’re not weaving between saguaros up here, it’s all ponderosa pines.
The Rim is a private residential course but as you’ll see by the photos, homes do not impede on the view or experience. This is really a great track and if you’re in Phoenix in the summer months, and if you have the connections, I really recommend you try and get on here and its sister course across the street, the Golf Club at Chaparrall Pines (though I did not play there).
This club flies way under the radar. It’s always ranked in Golf Digest’s Best in State and is on the GolfWeek Top 100 Modern Courses (75th on the 2019 list) but it’s even hard to find anything about it on Google. It took me a couple of pages reading through some scorecard- type sites and whatnot to find the first result I could which was “The Rim: Jobs.” Honestly, they’re looking for a sous chef.
The course features awesome elevation changes and awesome views. The rock formation behind the 13th green can be seen from space (only a minor exaggeration). This was Weiskopf and Morrish’s last collaboration and Weiskopf noted, “The twelve finest consecutive holes Jay and I ever designed are here at the Rim Club starting with hole number seven.” I’ll tell you one through six is no field of turds either.
We lost our buddy Ronnie a few years ago. He was one of my favorite people to golf with (that’s him after getting clunked in the head with a golf ball on the ground – jk and no that didn’t kill him). Great golfer and it was always a fun round with him. I would never have to pre-plan a round, but whenever I was coming into Phoenix I would just let him know and the next day he’d have us on some great club like The Rim, we’d always have cocktails on course and after, then we’d do a great dinner before we had to work. If your buddies are like mine, you play the hypothetical foursome game, “If you could have anyone dead or alive in a foursome, who would it be?” Well I’d have Ronnie in mine. The others in my foursome? I know this is going to sound bible thumperish but Jesus because I’d have a lot of questions to ask and it would be a hoot to be able to say things like, “Jesus, I’m not even a deity and I could’ve hit that shot.” Then, I guess Bill Murray, just because it would be a hoot to watch him and Jesus in the same foursome. I’d share a cart with Ronnie.
We never ate up here so can’t give you recommendations. If you’re in Scottsdale then I go into those on my Troon North write-up.
Golf Scrapbook 