A Long Day at Coyote Wash Golf Course

On Tuesday I called the pro shop at the Links of Coyote Wash Golf Resort in Wellton, Arizona hoping to get a tee time for sometime this week.  What I was told was that the entire week was booked but when I said we were only in town for a week, the nice lady at the desk searched through her computer listings and snagged us a cancelled spot at 11:48 the next morning.  Done.  

We arrived in plenty of time, gave our name to the ranger and stepped over to the putting green to practice.  When we weren't called after a few minutes, we came back to our golf cart and sat with the group of other golfers waiting to be called to the tee.  And then we watched as group after group were cleared to go to the tee while we sat there.  Hmmm.  Finally after about a half hour, Denny approached the ranger who said our name had been checked off his list as teeing off.  What?  So the ranger went inside and talked to the pro shop staff where he discovered (delete long explanation here) that a twosome with girlfriends claimed our spot by saying they were a foursome and off they went.  So the ranger squeezed us in by ourselves since all the other groupings were foursomes for the remainder of the day.  

Thus, there were nothing but foursomes ahead of us so we settled in for a long day.  Surprisingly, I started off on the very short first hole with a birdie.  Because when I say short, I mean 216 yards short from the red tees.  Coyote Wash is one of the shortest par 70 golf courses we have ever played that is stretched out over the largest area we've ever seen.  Although the score cards are marked stating the golf course has four sets of tee boxes, the course was only set up with three.  The longest tees (blue) have a yardage of 6019 yards with a rating/slope of 68.110.  The white tees have a yardage of 5701 yards with a rating/slope of 64.9/109 and the red tees have a yardage of 4953 yards with a rating/slope of 66.5/105

The golf course itself is set among homes lining the fairways, but they are set a reasonable distance off and hitting a nice, easy straight ball means you'll be safe the entire round here.  The fairways are open, there aren't a lot of sand traps (although those that were there I managed to find) and water is only a problem on hole number six.

On hole number six a pond extends the entire length of the hole and at most people's landing area the fairway gets very narrow and there are houses much closer to the fairway than on other holes.  So there was quite a back up on this hole as many people ended up in the water.  Notice you have a great view to look at while you are waiting your turn.

Probably our biggest complaint about this golf course is that when you leave the sixth green you have a riding cart drive of almost one half mile to get to the seventh hole and there are absolutely no signs telling you where to go or that you will have such a long drive.  Denny and I thought we were on a bike/walking path at one point and started to turn around but decided to keep going and we did indeed eventually discover the next hole.  I told the guys who were still waiting on the seventh tee (even though it took us a LONG time to get there) that they should have left us a trail of bread crumbs to follow.  But it's a beautiful hole as you can see below.

As you can see from the photographs above, there's not much chance of getting into trouble on this course.  The sand traps do have some big lips and high banks on a few holes and you can lose a ball or two because you can't get to some out of bounds balls due to the fences that are in place even on vacant lots in the complex.  But for as short as the golf course is, it still took us five hours to play due to the number of people on the golf course.  There are several very busy RV parks nearby and the only other golf course within 25 miles is an executive course that is also jam-packed with golfers.  Still, it is a pretty golf course that is in very good shape for a heavily played desert golf course and we would play it again in a minute.  Actually, if we were ready to settle down, they have some beautiful adobe Sante Fe style homes here, any one of which I'd be happy to move into.

I was not able to find any kind of discount online for this golf course, so we paid the full price of $39 per person to play eighteen holes with a riding cart.  After 1 PM it would have cost $19 to play, but at this time of year with the sun setting when it does you would not be able to finish an eighteen hole round of golf due to the number of people on the golf course before darkness set in. This is a busy, busy golf course.