A new golf course is to open for play in December at the Verrado Golf Club in Phoenix, Arizona.

The Victory Course has been designed by a team from Lehman Golf Design, and will form part of an adult community created by golf developers DMB.

The course has been built in a rugged, rocky environment, and will play over 7,100 yards.

“We’ve truly used whatever the land has given us – if that’s a cliff or a nob or a boulder or a drop-off or a sudden rise up the mountain – and left the terrain all natural, so it looks like it’s been built right into the land,” said Tom Lehman,  In fact, I can't think of any other golf course in Arizona that is quite like it. It just looks so compelling that I’m sure it will be quite an experience for those who play it.”

The course is the tenth Lehman course to open in the US state of Arizona, and marks the firm’s  30th project overall.

A rock outcropping defines the greens on the course’s first and second holes, while the two closing holes lie in a deep basin, or pit, that was once the testing grounds for heavy-duty machinery built by Caterpillar.

Lehman has described the course as ‘traditional rather than desert’, and highlighted the ninth hole as being particularly impressive, saying he believed it would ‘eventually be regarded as one of the best par fours in Phoenix’.

“Overall, it’s going to be mostly all fairway, with greens that flow up and through and with all kinds of movement – humps and bumps and all that kind of stuff,” Lehman added. “But very natural and without a lot of bunkers, so it looks like we just set the golf course in there.”