Paradise Valley Country Club

Paradise Valley Country Club has operated on a piece of Paradise Valley, Arizona land between Phoenix and Scottsdale since 1953. The original routing was a Lawrence Hughes design — Hughes was a busy Southwest architect through the 1950s — and the course has been redesigned multiple times since with significant work through subsequent decades. The club hosted the PGA Tour's Phoenix Open in 1955 (the year Cary Middlecoff won) during a brief stretch when the tournament rotated through multiple Phoenix-area venues before settling at Phoenix Country Club and eventually TPC Scottsdale.

The course plays around 6,950 yards par 71 from the back markers, with bermuda fairways and a slope in the upper 130s. The fairways play firm given the Sonoran Desert subsoil. The mature landscaping through the property — Paradise Valley has been continuously developed since the 1950s — gives the routing a parkland-meets-desert character distinct from the modern desert-only routings elsewhere in the Phoenix metro. The fifteenth hole is a 545-yard par-5 with a tee shot played over a natural arroyo; the seventeenth, a 215-yard par-3 across a natural depression, is the routing's most-discussed one-shotter.

Paradise Valley Country Club is private and access is members and accompanied guests only. The membership is regional Paradise Valley and Camelback Corridor business and professional families. The hospitality model is traditional country club, and the institutional history through mid-twentieth century Arizona golf is part of the club's identity.

Phoenix climate gives Paradise Valley CC a playing season of October through May, with the firmest conditions in February and March. Summer afternoons routinely exceed 105°F and the course operates on shortened seasonal hours through June, July, August, and September. The Camelback Mountain visual backdrop visible from the property is part of the routing's photographic signature, and the mature landscaping gives the property cooler mid-summer conditions than the surrounding open desert courses.