Scottsdale ranks high in Golf Digest "Best places to play" guide

SCOTTSDALE, AZ

The ballots are in! Readers of Golf Digest have ranked more than 4,000 of North America’s best public and resort golf courses -- with several Scottsdale-area courses receiving outstanding rankings. Created as a magazine insert more than 30 years ago, “Places to Play” is now in its seventh edition with this latest version of rankings compiled from approximately 20,000 Golf Digest readers who filled out course ballots and shared their opinions and experiences on more than 4,000 courses in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Caribbean. Top courses in Scottsdale include TPC Scottsdale, Grayhawk Golf Club, The Golf Club at Eagle Mountain, Troon North Golf Club, Talking Stick Golf Club, We-Ko-Pa Golf Club and Legend Trail Golf Club, all of which received the outstanding ranking of four-and-a-half stars – just shy of the five-star superb ranking. Golf Digest readers reviewed thousands of courses they played over the previous year and rated them using a five-point scale for five separate criteria: the overall golf experience, value for the money, standard of service at the facility, overall conditioning of the course, and the normal pace of play for an 18-hole round of golf. In addition, readers were invited to write comments on their experiences at each of the courses they rated -- both the good and bad. Each comment was then reviewed by a team of editors who ensured the comments were fair, accurate and representative of the sample. Reader star ratings were then averaged and compiled on a bell curve to reflect a course's relative strength.