After our warm-up on the Li’l Wick course we drove back to the clubhouse and checked in for our round on the Big Wick course. When planning out this golf trip Big Wick was one of the Phoenix-area courses that I wanted to play the most!

Wickenburg Ranch is a residential development that is located about an hour and a half northwest of Phoenix. There are 27 holes here and the community’s Big Wick course is the star of the show. Big Wick always gets ranked among the best public courses in Arizona and you can even see it sneak into the top-100 public lists, depending on the publication.

Big Wick was designed by Bill Brownlee and Wendell Pickett (names that I have not heard of before) and opened in 2015. While homes can be seen along the course, most of Big Wick is routed through the rugged desert landscape.

If there is a short way to sum up my Big Wick experience, I’ll say that it could be the perfect golf course! Besides the lengthy drive out here from Phoenix and the potentially proud pricing in the winter (like all the upscale Phoenix courses during peak season) I cannot think of any areas where Big Wick is lacking. We paid $50 on a weekend afternoon and it was an incredible value.

Big Wick checks all the boxes I like to see in a golf course. For example, it is interesting to play, has great views (Vulture Peak in the Vulture Mountains), is playable for an amateur and has a cool signature hole. The terrain rolls in this area of the desert so a few holes hug hillsides while others have some uphill and downhill to them.

We played the blue tees which are 70.3/133/6486 (par-71) and there is very little target golf at Big Wick. Most of the holes have a desert look to them, but Big Wick should be friendly and rewarding for the average golfer. While there are a couple tricky-looking tee shots, most holes open up with large fairways and have large greens.

There are many good golf holes at Big Wick, including the par-5 7th and the par-3 13th. The 7th is the second of the course’s five par-5’s and perhaps the most interesting. The drive plays from an elevated tee and you may not need the driver. The green is massive and sits over a wash so there is plenty of risk/reward.

The 13th is the longest of the six par-3’s on Big Wick and it is the signature hole. From the blue tees it is 220 yards, but can stretch up to 246 yards from the blacks. It drops about two clubs down to another clever green complex – with water and sand guarding the green. The water is to the right and not surprisingly, we all ended up in the bunker to the left!

The maintenance was great and although everything looked dry, the course was pure. I ended up with good lies and the tee boxes had those clean edges that make desert golf so appealing. The greens are bentgrass and were great to putt, even in the late spring heat.

Our group had a blast at Big Wick and the course lived up to the hype in every way. If you are vacationing in Phoenix then I’d highly suggest heading out here for a round. I’d put Big Wick somewhere among my top 25 personal favorites and think it can be talked about as the best public course in Phoenix.

Course Pictures (click any picture to scroll through the gallery):