Vistancia voted Best Master-Planned Community/Development for second year.

A perfectly lovely golfing destination awaits at Blackstone Country Club at Vistancia.

Blackstone’s clubhouse named as one of the finest clubs in Arizona.

Blackstone is ranked among America’s best golf communities in 2009.

The number of new golf course openings in the U.S. has slowed considerably the past few years, but there’s been no let-up in quality.

We caught up with one of the top minds in the field of golf course design.

A rollicking ride awaits at Jim Engh’s 18- hole masterpiece in northwest Phoenix.

One of the fastest-growing real estate markets in the country, the Phoenix, Scottsdale area is still opening new, top-of-the-market golf communities.

There is a reason why Jim Engh has been named Golf Digest’s “architect of the year” on four separate occasions- work like his latest, the Irish-inspired Blackstone Country Club.

Of the 20-plus projects Engh has worked on since starting his own firm in 1991, he says the desert setting makes this course stand out.

Blackstone Country Club was named by Golf Magazine Living as one of 10 new golf communities that people are talking about because of its programs for children.

Why people are talking. Located northwest of Phoenix, Peoria is the one of the biggest boomtowns in the Southwest. But this isn’t just another city on steroids: Peoria still retains some of the sedate, underdeveloped ambiance that Scottsdale enjoyed 20 years ago.

Then along came Colorado architect Jim Engh, who finally has got the ball rolling for the Wes-siders with a new and different layout called Blackstone Country Club, which opened in January in what truly is Peoria.