WM Phoenix Open week, from the inside

Event · Scottsdale

Should you time a Scottsdale stay around the WM Phoenix Open?

Yes, if you like golf and can tolerate one very loud week. The WM Phoenix Open is played at TPC Scottsdale each winter and is famous for being the noisiest tournament in professional golf, drawing enormous crowds to north Scottsdale for the run of the event. On a MidStays stay of a month or more you can go on a quieter early-week practice day, walk out when you are finished, and spend the rest of the month playing golf yourself in near-empty conditions.

Living here rather than visiting changes the economics of the whole week. There is no hotel to fight for, no flight to schedule around the leaderboard, and no obligation to make the trip worthwhile by attending on the biggest day. You can go for three hours in the morning and be home for lunch. If the forecast is poor or the crowd looks brutal, you skip it and go the next day instead — an option that simply does not exist for someone who flew in for it.

What the tournament does to the city is worth planning around. North Scottsdale traffic slows considerably, shuttle routes and road restrictions go in around the course, ride-share pricing surges at the obvious hours, and restaurants across the north of the city book out. The Loop 101 corridor nearest the course is the pinch point, so shift your errands, gym visits and grocery runs to the south or west for those days and the week is barely an inconvenience.

Around that one week sits the actual golf season, which runs roughly November through April and is the reason a lot of people take a long stay here in the first place. Those are the months when the courses are in their best condition, and also when they are busiest and most expensive, so tee times want booking ahead rather than on the morning. Rates fall steeply in summer and play moves to first light, which is a genuine option if you can accept teeing off before sunrise and finishing before the heat becomes serious. The desert-course layouts here are worth the trouble either way: target golf between saguaros and boulders, with the mountains as a backstop.

The honest tradeoff is noise and volume. If crowds and thumping music at a golf course are not your idea of a good time, that particular week is the one to spend on the preserve trails, at the far end of the greenbelt, or in the quieter parts of the city, and there is plenty of month left either side of it. The tournament is a spectacle rather than a golf outing, and knowing which of those you want before you buy anything saves a lot of disappointment.

If you're here for a month or more

One loud week inside a month-long stay is a rounding error, which is exactly why living here beats visiting for it. Use tournament week for the spectacle and the other three weeks for the golf you actually came for — mid-morning weekday tee times in January or February, when the courses are quiet and in the best shape they will be all year. If you are aiming at that winter window, book the home well ahead: February is the hardest month of the year to find anything in Scottsdale.