Mojave Dunes- Golfing The Arizona Indian Reservation

Adjacent to the Avi Indian Resort & Casino, the Mojave Resort Golf Club is a championship resort course with wide, congenial fairways and four sets of tees, allowing golfers their own challenge. ...

Adjacent to the Avi Indian Resort & Casino, the Mojave Resort Golf Club is a championship resort course with wide, congenial fairways and four sets of tees, allowing golfers their own challenge.

The terrain combines native vegetation and wind-sculptured sand dunes. The natural water features ebb and flow with the topography. Many of the fairways are bordered with indigenous desert sand, shrubbery and wild life. The greens are a bit courser and truer than most others in the Southern Nevada area. This reporter assumes the combination of lower elevation and watering patterns make this phenomena come about, thus providing a suitable level of difficulty for an enjoyable and challenging round of golf. The course itself is eclectically well-designed with bunker sand traps and water hazards on a relatively flat, but undulating plot of real estate. A small new housing tract of modest homes is perking-up (as they were advertised) on the lengthy road (Aha Macav Parkway) coming in to the resort from Highway Route 163. These new dwellings are located on holes #12 and #13.

Duff the Dunes at Mojave
Resort Golf Club

Between the silhouette view in the background and the rolling fairways, a golfer can easily be distorted and baffled by the lack of carry and roll in their golf shots. In reality, the Mojave Golf Course lies at zero feet elevation next to the Colorado River and is usually watered thoroughly each day to maintain its lush emerald condition. Hence, the golfer visiting Mojave for the first time after playing any of the Las Vegas courses, some 90 miles (two hour drive) to the north, and 1,000 to 1,500 feet higher in elevation, may be unsure for the first few holes whether or not they lost their vigor.

Another thing that strikes the devoted golfer as their round of golf begins is the pin placement illustration system employed on each cart. The commonly used 1-2-3 checked flag system pictorially maps-out the full dimensions of the forthcoming green.

A very evident factor of Mojave Golf Resort is the serene setting provided by Mother Nature. Temperatures are a bit more comfortable in the winter months (approximately 10 degrees warmer than Las Vegas). Winds can be a prevalent factor too, but on particular days, this locale seems to be able to escape winter's wrath by being peacefully nestled in its own little carved-in piece of land to provide golfers with a pleasant and relaxed experience.

Jetsetters Magazine Golf MallHole #2, appropriately named "the Crater", right away tests the golfers patience. It is a short par 4, 299-yard hole from the Championship (yellow) tee boxes, which is best played with a long iron or fairway wood from the tee to clear the first bunker some 178 yards straight out. This tactic will leave a petite wedge shot over a sand dune to an elevated green, but at the same time this creates a difficult, blind approach due to the height of the putting surface. The green is very diminutive in depth, but long in width, making it imperative to stop the ball on line to the pin once it reaches the putting surface.

The Hole #9, a par 4, 438-yard test is appropriately named "The Brute". It is the number one rated or handicap on the course. With its length and protective bunkers, a draw (right to left) shot is preferred, but not mandatory. A very difficult approach to the green is upon the golfer with a steep collection area to the right of the putting surface if the shot is missed there. A sand trap and "dunish" mound of sand lies directly behind the green if the shot is long. Water (out-of bounds) and tall grass growing from the moister ground confronts the golfer if they are too far to the left.

Although nothing was created unfairly, the golfer will find some fairways a bit unduly trecherous, such as Hole #11 (named "Entrapment"), with a non-conspicuously placed sand bunker in its middle where a longer drive may be able to reach it. Whether or not the drive makes the trap, it leaves a tricky climbing approach to arrive on the green in regulation.

Certified Preowned Callaway Golf Clubs

Hole #13 ("the Pit") is a short par 5, 477 yarder. It winds like the letter "S" with a large waterless strip of desert confronting the golfer to hit over and reach the green. As the fairway slithers around the well-manicured desert landscape, the fairway becomes very narrow. Therefore, if you failed to hit a long drive from the tee, you probably will be required to lay up your second shot. Perfect positioning in the tapered fairway is required to avoid the unsure hazard. Although the natural desert sand floor looks, feels and reacts like a shot from a characteristic sand trap, it allows the golfer to ground the club while addressing their ball.

Holes #17 ("Crap Shot"), and #18 ("Double Cross"), bring the golfer in with two of the prettiest holes of the day. Both tee-off shots will necessitate the carry over small lakes. Hole #17, a par 3, 145 seven iron to a peninsula green is protected by a sand trap if you bail out to the right. Hole #18, a par 4, 388-yard trial requires a perfectly-placed drive to the fairway which runs parallel to the river-like lagoon to the right, and thoughtfully-positioned sand traps to the left, some 200+ yards out. From here, and to advance your ball to make the green in regulation, the golfer is faced with another shot over the stream to an angulating green that is well protected by bunkers on the right and behind it (in case you used an extra club length to ensure dryness).

Duffer DVDsWith a four-star rating by Golf Digest, and voted the "Best Course" in the tri-state area (Arizona, California, Nevada), Mojave Golf Resort provides the finishing touches to a total entertainment venue that

Article Tags: Mojave Golf, Putting Surface, Sand Trap