COVER STORY
Above: Guests at Li’l Wick are encouraged to relax and have fun, as evidenced by this guest sporting her Wranglers during opening day festivities.
Left: An impromptu dance session for those more focused on the party than the golf.
enticements, you might opt to stay put and skip the golf altogether, which is fine with the folks who created it. “If you want to play three or four
holes and decide you want to take a break and go have lunch, or a beverage, go for it,” says Brownlee. “Just jump back in when it opens up and away you go. I think that’s something people are going to embrace, that it’s not so structured.” Still, the foundation of the entire
is a park, complete with short-game golf course, walking paths, yoga lawn, an astronomy observatory — AND a special events amphitheater behind the ninth tee that can accommodate parties, weddings and concerts. “We had four goals for the Li’l Wick
short-game park experience,” says Brownlee. “The first was to introduce people into golf that hadn’t played golf. Second, to create golf that is fun and entertaining and not a 4- or 5-hour round that is difficult for many. Third, to come up with something that introduced a
20 | AZ GOLF Insider | SPRING 2017
different element of entertainment for the community. And fourth, to come up with something that would introduce a pedestrian non-golfer into a golf setting.” The team checked each box with the
creation of Watering Hole, a bar and grill plunked down right into the middle of the 18-acre experience. The island- like facility dishes out tasty, distinctive American fare — the smoked beef brisket grilled cheese sandwich is exceptional —premium beers and liquors, fire pits, wide-screen TVs and a variety of comfy chairs. Watering Hole offers so many
golf park is the quality of the course itself. It certainly nails the “beauty” criterion, tucked into an alluring desert environment dotted with trees and shrubs, with one large lake and mountain backdrops beyond. The key question, then, is how “golf-worthy” are the actual nine holes, to borrow Pickett’s term? Li’l Wick easily passes the acid test: it’s a big-time challenge for strong players, doable and enjoyable for rank beginners and pure fun for everybody in between. The ingenious design holds the secret to its success.
www.azgolf.org
WICKENBURG RANCH
WICKENBURG RANCH
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