 COURSE REVIEW
Dye in the desert:
|
| Las Vegas FREE Package Quote Call: (866) 456-9912 |
LAS VEGAS (Sept. 23, 2004) - They never should have turned Pete Dye loose in the desert.
Maybe he got into some peyote. Maybe he had a bad hair day. Maybe he wandered around in the desert too long after a beer-and-blackjack binge at Terrible's Casino.
|
In any event, the animal in Dye's vision quest turned out to be the wolf, and he turned it into one diabolical course here on the Paiute Indian reservation, where the Indian finally gets his revenge on the white man, every day, every round.
The Wolf course is one of three at the Las Vegas Paiute Resort, all designed by Dye. But it is the Wolf, the newest, which brings out the darkest side of Dye, probably the most controversial golf course architect of his time.
The course is so treacherous, it's almost mystical. Dye, the master illusionist, uses the desert mystique, combined with the ringing mountains that change color throughout the course of a round, to somehow merge a mercurial round of golf with a moving desert experience.
He
throws it all at you, showing you all his pitches: curveball, slider,
even knuckleball. With the unmoving Spring Mountains always in the background,
Dye has used the surroundings to skew the golfer's perspective like
a house of mirrors. It's like sighting down the barrel at a leaping,
twisting jackrabbit.
Built on an alluvial fan, Dye took his dozer and made a little Paiute magic. Swales, fake fairways, alternate landing areas, the signature bunkers - your eye never stops moving. The fairways aren't just sloped and banked, they're rippled like a Muscle Beach pretty boy. You never seem to get a flat lie or an even break. He taunts and entices you, giving you a little something here, taking away something big there.
You find yourself saying: What the hell do I hit here, and where do I hit it?
Designed for tournaments and breaking the back of today's advancing technology, the course weighs in at a whopping 7,604 yards, the longest in the great state of Nevada, where the courses are as big as the imagination of the men who built this strange city in the middle of the southern Nevada desert.
The closing holes, No. 17 and 18, are long and mean. The 17th, at 486 yards, is a risk/reward situation. A long tee shot is required to the right side of the fairway to avoid the arroyo that runs through the middle of the fairway. If you lay up, you'll have a long second shot to get over the second arroyo.
The 496-yard 18th has water on the right. Your second shot is downhill to a green guarded by bunkers short and to the right. You can play it safe by going short and to the left and letting it feed onto the green.
The island hole is similar to the more famous 17th at TPC at Sawgrass, but it has rocks around it instead of railroad ties. It's also longer, at 182 yards, and has a large, three-tiered green.
The length is only the vanguard of this course's challenges. The fairways are wide as all outdoors and the greens, on average, are bigger than the other two courses.
But it's the tricks he throws at you, the way he plays with your head, that makes you feel you've encountered something wild.
You have to wonder if he didn't have something to do with the wind, which howls in off the mountains, nearly blowing the windshield out of your cart. At times, it's like standing in a NASA wind tunnel, a steady force, 25-30 mph with higher gusts.
"I've never been here when it hasn't blown like this," said Dave Gilmore, a greenskeeper at a neighboring course, and Wolf regular. "This is standard."
The course is meticulously maintained, and the desert that surrounds it and winds through it is left alone. Lose a ball here and it's lost forever. The fairways seem unnaturally green, partly because they contrast so dramatically with the earth tones of the desert, partly because, being on an Indian reservation, the course isn't so constrained by the tight water rights issues other Western U.S. courses are.
The
verdict
Rarely does a course this challenging combine with the natural elements to produce an experience like this.
To play the Wolf, 30 minutes north of Las Vegas, is to have as pristine a desert day as possible and still be in the domain of man. If it weren't for the visible power lines, you could swear you were in an ancient desert. No cars, no houses, just wind and sky and golf. You rarely even see an airplane.
For some reason, 30 minutes from The Strip is too far for those tourists linked inexorably to the earthy pleasures of Sin City, and so the great bulk of the Wolf's visitors are repeat business, from locals to out-of-towners.
Don't let its reputation scare you away. With five sets of tee boxes, you can get in a few jabs of your own on the Wolf.
In terms of service, at times, it seems the course attendants outnumber the golfers, ready to help with any situation.
There isn't much bad to say about the Wolf. The ball-marked greens could be in a little better shape, especially since the course doesn't have to worry as much about other courses as water.
It's awkward to call a course that charges anywhere from $129 to $195 for green fees - they do have $100 twilight rates - a bargain, but those numbers are comparable to other top-end Vegas courses.
Places to stay
Plans call for a hotel to be built at the resort to beef up the golf course numbers, but nothing is firm yet.
You can choose from just about anything in Las Vegas, at any budget, from the large, expensive resorts on the Strip to the cheap motels downtown that include adult movies.
Places to eat
The Paiute Resort's Bar and Grill has a great view of the mountains and course, and serves sandwiches, salads and chef's specials. There is also a cigar lounge.
There isn't much else out on the reservation, unless you want to seek out an Indian and invite yourself to dinner. You're better off choosing from one of the millions of restaurants in the city.
There are obviously quite a few upscale restaurants to choose from, in the big resorts and elsewhere. If you like beer, try microbrewer Gordon Biersch, and ask for the beer sampler.
Tee times
Las Vegas Golf by PGA Pros:
TravelGolf Vegas - 1-866-457-0062 (702-577-2220)
For the best golf packages and best rates in Las Vegas:
Las Vegas Golf Travel - 1-866-457-5994 (1-866-457-5994)
Las Vegas Next Day Golf >>
Arizona Golf Packages and Tee Times:
AZ Teetimes - 1-866-444-0992 (602-910-6821)
Fast fact
Pete Dye used to be in the insurance business. It was his trip to Scotland in 1963 that profoundly changed his theories in golf course architecture: small greens, pot bunkers, undulating fairways and wooden bulkheads.
Any opinions expressed above are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the management. The information in this story was accurate at the time of publication. All contact information, directions and prices should be confirmed directly with the golf course or resort before making reservations and/or travel plans.
Course details and online booking
