Arizona's 2026 Overseeding Season: Which Courses Close and When

Autumn is overseeding season in Arizona, and in late September 2026 it is in full swing. Across the Phoenix, Scottsdale and Tucson areas, courses are taking turns to close for a few weeks while they plant the ryegrass that keeps them green through the winter peak season. If you are planning a round between now and early November, the date you choose can decide whether you play a freshly overseeded course, a course on cart-path-only rules, or no course at all.

What Overseeding Is

Most low-desert courses are grassed with warm-season Bermuda grass, which thrives in the summer heat but goes brown and dormant when nights turn cool. Each autumn, crews plant cool-season grass over it. Talking Stick Golf Club in Scottsdale describes a typical process on its maintenance page: the existing grass is mown very short ("scalping"), perennial ryegrass is seeded on tees and fairways and Poa trivialis on the greens, then the course is topdressed, fertilized and watered heavily for 10 to 14 days while the seed germinates.

For golfers, that means a closure of roughly two to four weeks, followed in many cases by a period when carts must stay on the paths while the new grass establishes.

The 2026 Schedule

The Arizona Golf Association publishes a statewide 2026 overseed schedule with closing and reopening dates for 368 individual courses at 288 facilities. Of those, 280 courses are listed as overseeding this year and 61 as not overseeding. Almost all of the closures fall in September and October, and the last listed reopenings are in mid-November.

Some of the earliest closures are already over or nearly over:

• Kierland Golf Club (Mesquite), Scottsdale: closed September 14, reopening September 28.
• TPC Scottsdale (Champions Course): closed September 14, reopening September 30.
• Quintero Golf Club, Peoria: closed September 21, reopening October 5.

Among the closures that start around now or in the coming weeks:

• TPC Scottsdale (Stadium Course), home of the WM Phoenix Open: September 28 to October 18.
• Arizona Biltmore (Links Course), Phoenix: September 28 to October 19. The Estates Course follows from October 19 to November 9.
• Grayhawk Golf Club, Scottsdale: Talon Course September 28 to October 12; Raptor Course October 12 to October 30.
• The Phoenician, Scottsdale: October 5 to October 22.
• Papago Golf Club, Phoenix: October 12 to November 2.
• We-Ko-Pa Golf Club, Fort McDowell: Cholla Course October 5 to October 23; Saguaro Course October 12 to October 30.
• Ventana Canyon, Tucson: Canyon Course September 21 to October 12; Mountain Course October 12 to October 31.

Resorts with two or more courses usually stagger their closures, so at least one course stays open throughout the season.

Confirm the Dates With the Course

Overseeding dates are set by each course, and they can differ from what is published elsewhere or change at short notice. We found two examples while preparing this article:

• Troon North Golf Club: the statewide list shows the Monument Course closing first (September 21 to October 9) and the Pinnacle Course second (October 5 to October 24). Troon North's own website gives the reverse: Pinnacle from September 20 to October 8 and Monument from October 4 to October 24, with all facilities closed from October 4 to October 8.
• Talking Stick Golf Club: the statewide list shows both courses closed from September 27 to October 15. The club's own maintenance page says the O'odham Course closed on September 27 and reopens on October 16, with carts on paths only through November 6, while the Piipaash Course closes from October 18 to November 6, with carts on paths only through November 27.

When the dates matter, rely on the course's own website or pro shop.

What It Means for Your Round

• Before closure: courses are often scalped short and can look patchy in the days before overseeding. Prices at this stage are usually still at summer levels.
• Just after reopening: expect cart-path-only rules, soft ground from the heavy watering and slower greens while the new grass matures.
• From late October: freshly overseeded courses, cooler temperatures and the start of the winter high season, when green fees rise.

You can check the playability forecast for any of these courses on our Arizona golf weather pages, for example TPC Scottsdale Stadium Course, Troon North and Papago Golf Club. For more on how the seasons shape desert golf, see Golf in Arizona: A Season-by-Season Guide.

Sources: Arizona Golf Association 2026 Overseed Schedule; Troon North Golf Club course information; Talking Stick Golf Club maintenance. Dates as published on September 27, 2026.

Photo: hole 7 of the Canyon course at The Phoenician, Scottsdale, Arizona, by Bernard Gagnon, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Resized from the original.