Sterling Grove Golf & Country Club

This is a really fun tract. Very well designed and very well manicured. Makes you put on your thinking cap as you navigate the course. If you can move the ball you will enjoy a lot of the tee shots here. One of the tricks to scoring at this course is getting the ball in the right quadrant of the greens. If not, like other reviews in the past, three and four putts will come into play. I played with a member named Paul who shared some local knowledge that helped me through. Definitely pay attention to the GPS on your cart as this helps too. Overall I had a great time, played well too, which always makes it a little better. This place is going fully private in November so get here while you can. AA

Course has a great layout and for the most part it's fantastic, But the Greens were chewed up bumpy, fairway had a lot of missing grass. It must be the spring to summer transition. many of the courses in the Phoenix area have the same conditions. it was 112 degrees as I finished. so drink a lot.

Course Review: Sterling Grove

The Staff & Hospitality: A Perfect Drive

From the moment you arrive at the bag drop, the service here is top-tier. The outside services staff set a welcoming tone right as you pull up, which is carried all the way through by the professionals in the pro shop, the player assistants, and the beverage cart team. The entire staff delivers a premier, country-club-level experience.

Course Conditions: Front Nine vs. Back Nine

Tee Boxes: In excellent shape, providing a great, level stance to start every hole.

Fairways: Highly consistent, earning a solid 8 out of 10 for turf uniformity and great lies.

The Greens: Unfortunately, this is where the round faced some heavy turf conditions. The putting surfaces were easily in the worst shape I’ve ever seen them—highly inconsistent, bumpy, and struggling to roll true.

Note from the field: I was informed that a bad batch of seed or treatment sourced from Florida caused severe turf distress, leading to localized die-off across the greens.

The Verdict

The agronomy and greenskeeping team at Sterling Grove always works tirelessly to maintain championship conditions, so this anomaly is certainly no fault of theirs.

One of the main reasons I always look forward to playing here is for their typically immaculate, true-rolling greens, which sadly wasn't the case for this loop. I have no doubt leadership and the turf management team will get these putting surfaces back to a premium stimp reading soon, but for now, the flat-stick experience was a bit disappointing.

I would like to thank everyone at Sterling Grove for their professionalism and making our outing a GREAT one!

This course has changed since I last played it. Gone are all the tall fescue grasses which lined the course and ran through some of the fairways and hazards. You'll need to stay in the fairways as the rough is difficult to find your ball in and is mostly weeds and scrub which transitions quickly to desert and rock. The greens are inconsistent and severely sloped. Some are lightning fast with harsh slopes and others are slower and bumpy with harsh slopes. It is summer so the fairways are a bit dry. The aprons have been recently punched and are soft which stops the ball. Most of the greens are mounded so you need to fly the ball. However, it is very difficult to stop the ball as the greens are hard packed. This is not a course for casual golfers or beginners. Unfortunately for us a group several tee times in front of us did not know how to play well killed the pace for the rest of us. The pace on the front 9 wasn't too bad until we hit the log jam caused by this group. The back 9 was a like a slow death march in the summer heat waiting on every shot. The ranger while actually quite friendly did nothing to speed up this group. This pretty much ruined the experience for all of us behind this group who had to wait. We were going to go to the restaurant after the round, but after waiting for so long in the heat we just wanted to get out of there.

Beautiful course! Layout was tough with all the bunkers surrounding the greens. Greens had lots of undulations. You definitely need to play target golf. Great challenge.

This was our first round at Sterling Grove. We found the course conditions and layout were excellent. The biggest problem we encountered was the pace of play. We played as as the second of three consecutive twosomes with our tee time at 12:42. The starter allowed a fivesome to tee off two groups ahead of us which at our private club’s course is only allowed with the pro’s approval. We waited on every hole and finished the round in four and one half hours. The pro or starter should have broken the fivesome up into two groups. Both a course ranger and the starter came through a couple of times during the round and could easily see what was going on. The fivesome had at least two holes open in front of them. We finally asked the twosome behind us if they would like to play in together. They did and told us the same thing happened to them a week earlier. We reported the issue to the pro shop after the round. Perhaps they will decide not to let it happen again.

Greens in tough shape

Signage would rate poor on the course and even to get food at6th hole.

Called in hot dog order 3 holes early and food wasn’t started when we arrived…..training needed!

Very nice clubhouse

Didn’t expect much but instantly after you getting into the community you felt definitely “inclusive and exclusive.” Very welcoming and joyful.

The course layout was fun and exciting. Course condition is great!. The putting area is a great bonus!! However the pace of play was really slow. But we got Marshall’s driving around giving out water and trying to get people moving faster.

Overall, one of the most memorable and enjoyable rounds I have had this year!!

Payed this course for the first time. Great facilities and course condition. The greens were fast but true when you read them correctly. For a young course the fairways were in great shape. I played off the gold which was probably too long for me. Next time will be white/gold combo. Only negative is there are too many road crossings.

Course has some teeth to it. Greens are challenging. Quality golf course.

no question this is an elite course from the clubhouse to the 18th hole. they even have a ranger who does what he's supposed to do-keep pace of play moving. the place is meticulously well taken care of. a premier public/private facility no doubt

One of the best, if not the best golf courses I've ever played. Difficult greens, but great experience.

Great course and the entire place was a lucky find for sure! This course is set up for years of success

This course is in impeccable shape at a place in PHX most would write down as a go-to. Greens are undulating and hard but course is wide and fair. People are great. Nice views of White Tank Mountains and an occasional awesome fighter jet practicing from Luke Air Force Base. Great day.

Tough greens but lots of fun. Shot 85 anywhere else would have been 78 easily