Golfers must experience Vegas' Shadow Creek
By JOHN REGER
The Orange County Register 10/19/04
Most golfers have courses on their list they want to check off before their playing careers are over.
There are the obvious ones that are accessible to every golfer, the only deterrent being time and money. Courses like Pebble Beach, Pinehurst, and St. Andrews are all on golfers' short lists.
Then there are the courses that purists fantasize about playing. The names are instantly recognizable, but the chances of getting on them are slim. Augusta National, Pine Valley and Cypress Point are courses that you are lucky to see, much less play.
Shadow Creek is a course that is almost as exclusive, but it is possible to get onto the course and play, though it is a bit tricky.
You can't just drive up to the gate and ask where to park your car. In fact, the only way guests get into the club is by limousine, and that vehicle stops only at The Mirage, MGM Grand, Bellagio, Treasure Island or New York, New York hotels in Las Vegas. Tee times are available on a limited basis Monday through Thursday.
It is one of those experiences that golfers should take advantage of. Two weekend rounds at Pelican Hill Golf Club in Newport Coast will pay for a single round at Shadow Creek, and it is well worth it. The experience begins the minute the limo pulls up to the hotel. Clubs are loaded in the trunk, snacks, drinks and water are provided in the back of the limo, and music plays for the 20-minute trip.
When the course was designed by Tom Fazio in 1989, the only thing near it was Nellis Air Force Base. Military air bases are not the best neighbors for golf courses, but the two have coexisted peacefully.
It really is inconceivable if you look at aerial shots of the area to think that anyone would build a golf course out there. It is literally in the middle of nowhere, 20 minutes from the Strip, surrounded by nothing but desert, with a few scrubby bushes.
Steve Wynn, who commissioned Fazio to build the course, told him he wanted something spectacular, and Fazio certainly complied.
Millions of cubic feet of earth were trucked in to make the mounds and hills that are featured on every hole, making it feel like a resort course you would find in North Carolina. Several different varieties of trees, including pines and oaks, give the pheasants that live on the course shade in the summer months.
Summer is when it's easiest to get on. The course still costs $500 to play, but during the cooler months it is tougher to get a tee time.
If you manage to get a time, expect to be pampered. The caddies are some of the best I have ever seen and include PGA Tour player Chris Riley's brother. They are dressed in white coveralls even when temperatures are in triple digits and usually come from some of the best country clubs around the nation. I wasn't given the wrong club once, and my caddie was a master at reading the greens.
Before you even tee off, go into the men's locker room and look around. The most stunning thing is the names on the lockers. Michael Jordan, Phil Mickelson, Bill Gates, Joe Pesci, Wayne Gretzky and Tiger Woods are some of the people who have memberships at the club. (Don't bother to bring a camera; you're not allowed to take pictures anywhere at the course.)
You warm up for your round at a small driving range, right next to the first tee. The idea is simple, yet so logical. When you are done hitting range balls, you walk about 50 yards to the first tee.
At the first tee you realize why this is such a good course. It is a 404-yard par-4 with a creek on the left side. It is framed by trees at the tee box and doglegs ever so slightly to the left.
No two holes are alike, and it wasn't like any other course I have played. I like distinctive golf courses.
Despite being in a desert, water is featured on eight of the holes. The most notable is the 17th hole, the course's signature hole and one of the prettiest par-3s I have ever seen.
Two-time Masters winner Ben Crenshaw, who has a home in Dana Point, called the 17th hole a "visual delight."
It is 164 yards from the back tee, downhill to an island green that has a pond in front and a waterfall in the back.
The 18th is one of the better finishing holes I have played. It is a par-5, which I like for a final hole, and is 527 yards long.
It is reachable, another feature I prefer, but is also tight and has water guarding the right side and the front of the green.
Look over to the right when you are on the green and you will see Steve Wynn's house. Even though he doesn't own the course any longer, he continues to be the only resident.
After our round, my friend Andre and I sat in the grill room and listened to some of the stories about the club. Like the time Wayne Gretzky was watching the Masters and his friend Mike Weir won. Someone else in the room prodded Gretzky to call Augusta National and try to get in touch with Weir, which he eventually did, offering his congratulations as the rest of the crowd listened in.
Then there is the one about President Bush playing and some fighter jets from Nellis flying by. Bush stopped and saluted as they flew over.
When the course was built it was unique, and 15 years later there's still no place like it.