The Talon course at Grayhawk Golf Club is a Gary Panks and David Graham co-design that opened in 1994, a year before Tom Fazio’s Raptor course debuted here. The Talon layout comes into its own on the back nine, with fairways set out around a number of deep box canyons.
Overall rating
The Talon course at Grayhawk Golf Club is a Gary Panks and David Graham co-design that opened in 1994, a year before Tom Fazio’s Raptor course debuted here. The Talon layout comes into its own on the back nine, with fairways set out around a number of deep box canyons.
Grayhawk Golf Club (Talon)
The Talon course at the Grayhawk Golf Club (which also hosts the ranked Raptor course) is a public display of design skill from two underrated members of the golf community, architect Gary Panks and two-time Major winner David Graham. The property offered the duo unique landforms to work with, from which they derived a number of unique short holes that will linger on players’ minds.
The most-photographed of the bunch is the par three No. 11. It will be worth playing from the back tees for many (175 yards) for that will grant you the opportunity to walk across the swinging bridge to the back teebox, which is built up within a box canyon, to play across a desert expanse to a green that has also been built up.
The theme of box canyons and their impact on course architecture continues during the back nine, including No. 13, where players will experience either “Heaven or Hell,” as the hole title suggests. At just 305 yards, players may find the former if they successfully gun for the green across this Cape-ish box canyon...or they may experience the latter if that decision proves brash.