Watch video: Desert Highlands Golf Club in Scottsdale
Desert Highlands Golf Club in Scottsdale was the original home of the Skins Game in 1983.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. ― The Skins Game has come full circle. It launched as an exhibition to showcase the first-ever desert layout by Jack Nicklaus and turned into a television juggernaut.
More than 40 years later, the Skins Game makes its triumphrant return on Black Friday. While Panther National in Florida hosts the rebirth of the silly-season event, this full-circle moment comes just 10 days after the most significant renovation to the original Skins Game site, Desert Highlands Golf Club in Scottsdale.
The Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course opened in 1983 and the first two Skins Game were staged there. To call it a smashing success might be an understatement. The Masters that year turned out to be the only golf tournament that drew bigger TV ratings. The all-star cast of Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson, Gary Player and of course Nicklaus proved impossible to ignore.
Desert Highlands, in many ways, was the fifth star of this show. This was Nicklaus’ first desert golf course design and the aerials captured by the helicopters that flew over this then-remote locale were stunning, with the saguaro-covered mountains contrasting the deep green of the fairways and greens.
“It’s a wonderful golf course. I consider it an historic golf course’,” said Nicklaus Design Senior Designer Chad Goetz. “Very important golf course and a pioneer kind of in Scottsdale of how we think about golf today.”
As it so happens at any golf course, though, eventually major work is needed and the membership at Desert Highlands decided that it was time for its renewal.
The golf course recently completed a nearly $10 million restoration project, re-opening on Tuesday, Nov. 17. Spearheaded by Goetz, the project was “conceived about five years ago,” he said, and the actual work started six months ago and included six major components:
design enhancements to several holesgreens reconstructiontee reconstructionbunker reconstructiondesert de- and re-vegetationrestoration of the turf found on the tees, fairways and rough
“At the end of the day, it’s his [Nicklaus’s] design and his golf course. So, it’s certainly not my job to second guess him,” Goetz said. “Obviously there’s a lot of me in it as well, especially in the geens, but, you know, the general 30,000 foot view was followed pretty closely.”
An interesting piece to the renovation was how much the greens had changed over the years. And not just by aging.
“The greens there were very severe and the club had kind of tinkered with them and massaged them over the years and and we had very inconsistent depths of greens mix and some of the greens were built on top of greens, so it was time for them to be replaced,” Goetz said. “They were originally bent grass greens, one of the first [golf courses] to have it in the desert but they they converted them to Bermuda at one point because their water quality dipped, and the desire was to go back to bent grass which which we did so the greens really kind of led the project.”
In 2021, well before any shovels were put into the ground for this renovation, Nicklaus visited his golf course. Goetz said he “directed the few changes that we did make and as the project came together the members weren’t happy with the consistency of the bunkers so we decided to re-do those.”
Another big part of the project was thinning out desert vegetation.
“The golf course has become really overgrown in the last 10 years,” Goetz said, “really blocking some of the sightlines. So, we were able to clear a lot of that out and open up a lot of the views, not only at the golf holes, but some long-range views to the valley and and to the mountains. It certainly wasn’t a what we would call a full tear-it-down-to-the-dirt restoration, but all of the key elements were touched.”
Viewing old TV footage of those Skins Games from 1983 and 1984 was key to all this as well.
“They had the helicopter flyovers and they did it in really shallow light and you could really see some of the features in the greens and certainly we didn’t want to replicate them to the strength that they were in 1983, but we wanted to bring back a couple of those features but in a softer way, a more playable way than when it first opened,” Goetz said. “So, I took a few inspirations from that and then also consulted some historical photos just to try and kind of find the original green shapes and sizes to kind of use this inspiration as we we went forward.”
Not many private clubs have a history like Desert Highlands does and it’s something the membership really cherishes.
“Those those first few Skins Games are still really at the heart of the club’s history. As you walk through the clubhouse, you’ll see many, many pictures from that,” Goetz said “At the core of the club, the Skins Game is always going to be one of the big moments in their history. I’m sure they’ll all be very interested to see part two.”
Those those first few Skins Games are still really at the heart of the club’s history. As you walk through the clubhouse, you’ll see many, many pictures from that. At the core of the club, the Skins Game is always going to be one of the big moments in their history. I’m sure they’ll all be very interested to see part two next week.
I did get to talk to a couple of the groups that were just right behind us. Everybody was really excited. They had a really cool event event on Sunday where 300 to 400 of the members went out and just walked the golf course. I’ve never seen that done. I thought that was a great idea where they could take their putter and a ball or two and actually, physically be on the golf course. They’ve seen pictures of it. I think the club did a great job of showing the progress to the project but to be able to be out there and walk on it again and see up close what we had done and I know the reactions from that were overwhelmingly positive and you know the club’s just been so tremendous to work with and cooperative and the members very supportive and I know they’re all just champing at the bit to get out there and and play it.
