Architect Rankings

The Best Jay Morrish Golf Courses in America

Jay Morrish spent his best years answering a hard question: how do you build serious golf in places that do not look like golf country? Desert in Scottsdale and Tucson. Ponderosa forest at 7,000 feet in Flagstaff. Volcano country in Bend. Lava fields in Hawaii. Our dataset holds 29 Morrish courses across ten states, and the pattern is an architect who let the land set the terms. His long partnership with Tom Weiskopf produced many of the courses below, and the Morrish half of that pairing is the grounding influence: playable widths, greens you can run the ball onto, desert that punishes the careless without mocking the careful. Start with the Flagstaff ranking and the Bend ranking for the local orders, then come back here for his national one.

1Canyon Course, Forest Highlands (Flagstaff, AZ)

The peak. Morrish and Weiskopf opened the Canyon Course in 1988 among ponderosa pine, oak, and aspen at 7,000 feet south of Flagstaff, par 71 at about 7,007 yards. It appeared on Golf Digest's America's 100 Greatest list from 1991 to 2014, a 23 year run, hosted the 1996 U.S. Junior Amateur and the 2006 USGA Mid-Amateur, and many raters consider it the premier course in Arizona. Mountain altitude shortens the effective yardage and lengthens the views, and the routing through the pines gives it a variety none of his desert work can match. First course at the 1,100 acre Forest Highlands community, and still the first name on this list by a clear margin.

2Troon Country Club (Scottsdale, AZ)

Where the partnership started. Troon Country Club, established in 1986, was Weiskopf's first design effort and one of the first desert courses in the Scottsdale area. Golf Digest named it the best new private course in America for 1986, and it stayed on the 100 Greatest list for ten years, from 1989 to 1998. Par 72 at 7,041 yards with a slope of 146, set at 2,400 feet below Pinnacle Peak and Troon Mountain. The telling detail is the playability: golfers can run the ball up onto many greens, while the wide fairways are guarded by cactus filled desert. That balance, invitation inside and punishment outside, became the template for a generation of desert golf. Member owned since 1995.

3Stone Canyon Club (Oro Valley, AZ)

Morrish on his own, and the solo work peaks here. Stone Canyon opened in 2000 about 20 miles north of Tucson below the Tortolita Mountains, par 72 at 7,317 yards, rated 74.0 with a slope of 145. It is the only Tucson area course to appear on Golf Digest's Top 100 in the United States, per Arizona Daily Star reporting. The signature par three 6th was built at a reported cost of 2 million dollars, with a pond and rock waterfalls fronting the green, the kind of flourish that could sink a course's credibility. Here it sits inside a routing strong enough to carry it. Morrish said the course has everything but an ocean, citing the elevation change, rock formations, and desert flora. It hosted The Match in November 2020, Mickelson and Barkley against Curry and Manning, which put its desert amphitheater on national television. It also tops the Oro Valley ranking, a short list it dominates.

4Monument Course, Troon North (Scottsdale, AZ)

The best public Morrish, and the access matters to the ranking. Monument opened in 1990 below Pinnacle Peak, par 72 at about 7,070 yards, named for the giant boulder sitting in the fairway of the par five 3rd. Elevated tees, granite boulder formations, and a regular place among the top public courses in Arizona in both Golf Digest and Golfweek rankings. Weiskopf's 2007 renovation swapped and rerouted holes between Monument and its sibling Pinnacle, which keeps the two courses in a permanent argument. Monument takes this spot as the more playable and the more famous.

5Stadium Course, TPC Scottsdale (Scottsdale, AZ)

The most watched Morrish course in the world, by an enormous margin. Morrish and Weiskopf opened it in 1986, and it has hosted the WM Phoenix Open since 1987, the most attended tournament on the PGA Tour. Par 71 at about 7,261 yards, with the par three 16th enclosed by stadium grandstands in tournament week. Golfweek ranked it No. 3 among Arizona public courses in 2026. Play it outside January and the underlying desert routing, set against the McDowell Mountains, is better than its party reputation suggests.

6Broken Top Club (Bend, OR)

Morrish in volcano country. Broken Top, opened in 1993, is named for a hollowed out volcano whose cinder cone remnant reaches 9,155 feet. Par 72 at 7,161 yards, private, ranked No. 19 in Oregon by GolfCourseGurus, managed by Troon Prive since March 2022. The Bend landscape, part pine forest, part volcanic scar, suited their eye for ground that looks unpromising until the routing starts. Membership costs sit in a high estimate tier, unpublished as usual.

7Pinnacle Course, Troon North (Scottsdale, AZ)

The tougher sibling. Pinnacle opened in 1995, five years after Monument, and is generally considered the harder of the two Troon North courses, with forced carries, deep bunkering, and greens that are elevated, tiered, and sloped back to front. It plays through foothills, ravines, and giant granite boulders below Pinnacle Peak, sits in Golfweek's Arizona public top 15, and was reworked alongside Monument in the 2007 rerouting. Golfers who prefer their desert golf with the volume up choose Pinnacle, and their argument is honest. We keep Monument ahead on fame and flow, and Pinnacle here as the connoisseur's alternative.

8The Boulders, South Course (Carefree, AZ)

Where the desert boom began. The Boulders courses date to 1984, and the South, par 71 at 6,726 yards, plays closest to the property's biggest rock formations, granite boulder piles estimated at 12 million years old. A huge boulder pile towers behind the par five 5th green and a balancing rock sits beside the 7th tee. This is target style desert golf, accuracy off the tee and precision around sloped greens, and it set the visual language every Arizona course since has had to answer. Ranked among Golfweek's top Arizona courses you can play, at the Waldorf Astoria Boulders resort.

The concession this list owes: Morrish's name rarely leads the marquee. The Weiskopf partnership means his best work is usually introduced as someone else's, and some of his desert layouts belong to an era of target golf that has aged unevenly. The top of this list has not aged at all. Start at Canyon, in the pines at 7,000 feet, where the desert architect built his best course in a forest.