Both the Faldo and Palmer layouts at JW Marriott's Wildfire Golf Club, lay down an excellent and contrasting test of golf. Each course has been handsomely crafted by the respective golfing legend whose name it bears. The Faldo Championship Course, which plays up to 6,846 yards, sits on a 174-acre site and offers a slight variation from the typical desert-theme layouts widely found in Scottsdale. It features generous fairways, large greens and tee boxes. The surrounding mountains and century-old saguaro cacti as well as 108 sand bunkers, reminiscent of Australian sand belt courses, provide a fair and challenging golfing environment. The course is laid out on predominantly flattish terrain, exuding a mix of parkland, links and desert styles. Here you will have bunkers etched on your mind both during and after the round. The signature of the course is its prodigious bunkering, both in terms of number and size. Along the fairways, around the greens and defining the skilfully crafted par-3 holes, you will be confronted by threatening sand. Generally there is sufficient space off the tee, even if you are a little wayward. With many outward holes flanked by a returning inward hole (in classic links style), adjoining fairways might even come to the rescue on really errant drives. Whereas the front-nine takes you on a loop around the huge JW Marriott resort hotel, the back-nine heads into the desert, only occasionally flanked by housing and offering wonderful views onto the McDowell mountains.