San Marcos in Chandler Was Arizona's First Grass Golf Course

The golf course at San Marcos in Chandler, Arizona, was the first grass course built in the state, opening in 1913 as part of a resort founded the same year Arizona became a state.

Who built the San Marcos resort and course?

Dr. Alexander J. Chandler founded the town of Chandler, southeast of Phoenix, in 1912, and set out that same year to build a desert resort there. Construction was announced in an Aug. 23, 1912, article in The Arizona Republican, whose founders said they aimed to make the property "the Pasadena of the Salt River Valley." The resort takes its name from Friar Marcos de Niza, who is said to have passed through the area in 1539 while searching for the mythical Seven Cities of Cibola, according to the resort.

The San Marcos Hotel opened on Nov. 22, 1913, and an ad that ran in The Arizona Republican that November advertised its "golf grounds, tennis courts, saddle horses" and other recreation for winter visitors. The 100-acre course was seeded with Bermuda grass, making it the first grass links in the state.

What is the course's history since it opened?

For decades the resort drew government officials, entertainers and athletes, with past guests including Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, Clark Gable and President Herbert Hoover, according to the resort. It closed from 1979 to 1986 amid financial hardship before reopening as a Sheraton property in 1987. The hotel was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 29, 1982. The course and resort, now known as San Marcos Golf Resort, remain open in Chandler today.