Anthem Country Club

Anthem Country Club, Anthem AZ: An Honest Community Overview

Anthem Country Club is the guard-gated, golf-focused part of Anthem, about 30 miles north of downtown Phoenix off I-17. It has around 2,900 homes, two 18-hole golf courses, two clubhouses, and one of the busiest social calendars in the north Valley. It also has a social club membership you can’t opt out of, more layers of fees than a typical Phoenix subdivision, and a commute that depends almost entirely on one freeway. Here’s the full picture.

Who Runs What (It’s Two Different Organizations)

Buyers mix these up all the time, so it’s worth getting straight before you make an offer.

The HOA (Anthem Country Club Community Association, or ACCCA) has a volunteer board and a management company. It runs the four gated entrances and the guards, maintains the private roads and sidewalks, and enforces the CC&Rs and design guidelines. Because the roads are private, repaving comes out of HOA reserves, not the county.

The club (Anthem Golf & Country Club) is a separate, for-profit business owned by Invited (formerly ClubCorp). It owns the golf courses, clubhouses, fitness centers, pools, tennis courts, and restaurants. The HOA has no say over it.

The Social Club Membership Comes With the House

This is probably the single most important thing to understand about Anthem Country Club. When you buy a home inside the gates, you automatically become a Social Member of the club and owe its dues. These dues continue for as long as you own the home. Also, homeowners don’t get a vote on what the club charges or how it’s run. Not a huge deal for most residents, but something to be aware of. I think it's a fair deal if you actually use the amenities like the gym, pools, tennis, etc.

One more thing: social membership does not include regular golf. That’s a separate membership with its own cost.

Golf

The community has two 18-hole championship courses, Persimmon and Ironwood, each with its own clubhouse, driving range, short-game area, and large putting green.

Full golf membership requires an application, approval, and an initiation fee on top of monthly dues. The initiation fees and monthly dues change, so make sure you get that in writing before making a move. Also, make sure there are ample tee times when you're looking to play as the courses can both get crowded during peak times.

Clubhouses, Fitness, and Tennis

The Persimmon and Ironwood clubhouses each have dining rooms, bars, and event space, and each has its own look. Between them there are two fitness centers with personal training and group classes like yoga and water aerobics.

The racquet sports setup is one of the better ones in the north Valley: nine post-tension hard courts, including a stadium court, plus dedicated pickleball courts. There are heated pools with lap lanes, heated spas, and on-site massage and aesthetic services.

Social Life

The club runs a packed calendar: Friday and Saturday happy hours, wine dinners, pasta nights, holiday galas, and concerts on a grass amphitheater that holds about 200 people.

What It Actually Costs

Expect several separate charges:

• Anthem Community Council assessment, which every Anthem homeowner pays
• ACCCA assessment for the gates, guards, and private roads
• Club social dues, which are mandatory
• Golf membership, optional, with an initiation fee and monthly dues
• Gate transponders, which residents have to buy (most home sales include them)
• Transfer fees when you buy or sell: a 0.25% fee to the ACCCA and another 0.25% to the Anthem Community Council (about $1,500 combined on a $300,000 home)

Make sure you get the HOA addendum when writing an offer and not after as you'll want to know the exact fees you're expecting to pay.

Commute and Traffic

Anthem lives and dies by I-17. Morning traffic heading south into Phoenix is the daily grind. Weekends and holidays are worse in the other direction: northbound traffic to Flagstaff and Prescott regularly backs up starting right at Anthem. When I-17 closes for a crash or construction, there aren’t good alternate routes, and detour traffic can spill onto local roads and ADOT hasn't exactly handled that well.

ADOT widened I-17 north of Anthem Way in 2025, which helps holiday traffic heading north but doesn’t do anything for the southbound commute, but hopefully a resolution is in the near horizon.

More traffic is coming. TSMC’s chip plant sits a few exits south at Loop 303 and I-17, and its planned expansion includes six more sites plus a PulteGroup development of about 15,000 homes and apartments. Regional planners have warned that the Loop 303/I-17 interchange was already expected to struggle under the original plant’s traffic.

If you have any other specific questions please feel free to reach out!