There is a rock in the middle of a green Scottsdale. But this is not a cheap obstacle. Don’t even think about moving it. You couldn’t if you tried. Calling it a rock doesn’t do it justice. It’s a 30,000 pound stone and it didn’t get to where it is by accident.
Its placement is key to strategy and aesthetics in The Six Shooter, a new short course at Scottsdale Country Club, which is not a country club in the closed sense. It is open to the public. “The People’s Country Club” is how it bills itself.
It’s hard to be a truly populist club if you don’t have a course that anyone can handle. Six Shooter is meant to be just that. Its 10-hole drive requires some skill if you want to score, but it is set up in a way that allows you to turn it.
The architect behind it is Forrest Richardson, a Scottsdale native with a penchant for bucking conventions. Among his credits is another local short course in Shadows of the mountainsa highly rated design whose 17½th hole plays as a par 2. Six Shooter also has a par 2: the 6th, which requires a 150-foot tee shot across a richly contoured green. The other nine holes are all par 3s, ranging from 80 to 150 yards, arranged to allow for 6- or 10-hole loops.
Both setups include the 4th hole, which is where you hit the stone. In golf, many greens have hazards around them. Very few have risks IN those, par-3 6 in Rivierawith its center green bunker being the most famous example.
Richardson could have also put a bunker on his green. But, intending to be different, he chose a stone, which required more work. It’s not just any stone. It is a blue color, flecked with veins of chrysocolla, a well-known silicate mineral that mixes with copper and produces an almost turquoise hue. “Blue Boulder” is also the name of the hole.
Blue stones cannot be found anywhere. It was pulled from a quarry outside of Tucson, trucked north to Scottsdale and placed in the heart of an 8,000-square-foot green. It’s impressive to look at and, unlike a bunker, impossible to play – a fun obstacle on a course designed to deliver fun in size.
Scottsdale Country Club also has a full size course. It dates back to 1953 and was the first course ever built in Scottsdale. Richardson played it as a child, when the surrounding wilderness was still undeveloped. He has been hired to reimagine that course as well, a renovation project slated for 2027.
First things first though: The Six Shooter. It is scheduled to open on April 30. This date is set. The stone on the fourth green is also fixed.
