Life after death: How one Phoenix-area golf course is getting rebrand, rebirth


Golf is planned to return to a long-neglected former course in southwest Phoenix, along with new housing.Southern Ridge Golf Club, located at 59th Avenue and Baseline Road in Laveen, has been closed for more than five years, and the former course has languished with overgrown weeds and dead plants. Before it was called Southern Ridge, the course was called Bougainvillea.The new ownership group, Laveen 140, bought the land in 2022, and at first decided to remove and redevelop the golf course into smaller pockets of open space, like pickleball courts, playgrounds, dog parks and sports courts.That proposal was met with “complete hostility,” said Adam Baugh, attorney representing the development with Withey Morris Baugh.The neighbors strongly opposed the plan, which would eliminate golf and build about 800 housing units on the site.“We misjudged the importance of the golf course,” Baugh said. “When the owner bought it, all he saw was an abandoned course.”After the community soundly rejected any plan that would remove the golf course, Baugh said the group went back to the beginning to create a plan that would modify, but preserve, golf on the site. It was important for the community, Baugh said, that golf would return before other developments opened.The neighbors surrounding the course have more sway in the project than a typical neighborhood would when it comes to new development. An existing agreement between the homeowner association and the golf course requires two-thirds of homeowners to sign off on approval of the project before the city can approve it.The development team has secured enough signatures from homeowners to move forward with the plan.Golf course will need overhaulReturning golf operations to the site will require an overhaul of the course and its infrastructure. Pumps in the lakes are broken and the irrigation system isn’t functional.“The course has been owned by five different owners,” Baugh said. “It shows that course has struggled.”After the plan was rejected, the group went back to the drawing board and brought on Forrest Richardson, a Phoenix-based golf architect who has worked worldwide on golf courses of all sizes.They submitted a new plan, called the Score Golf Club at Cottonfields, that decreases the course’s …

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