To begin, the entire Shadow Creek experience is one of those rare instances that defies the simple evaluation of a golf course. It also answers the oft posed question that if a good golf course were located next to an ugly industrial park or waste dump, would it still be as good?
Like Pine Valley and Augusta, it all depends on how well you hide the outside world. Shadow Creek certainly does that.
I arrived a night before in a wild desert thunderstorm. It has been two decades since my last experiment with hallucinogenic mushrooms, but as the rain pelted the airplane and bolts of lightning lit the sky, perhaps I was a bit more susceptible to the illusions created by the puppet masters.
It began at Caesars Palace, but could as easily have been New York New York, Paris, Treasure Island with a shipload of Buccaneers or a jet black pyramid, blasting a cylinder of light into space.
They lure you in slowly. An intimate dinner in an open air Italian Bistro with fine Chianti - ancient statues line the plaza with an impossibly beautiful fountain as a centerpiece. Tourists mill about in front of shops full of European clothes and jewelry.
Everything appears authentic, with not a detail missing but the pigeon droppings and promiscuous Italian men whistling at beautiful women strutting by, pretending to be offended but secretly flattered.
It all seemed so real, staring into the eyes of a woman I first met 25 years ago on a train in Europe. For a moment, I forgot we were seated in the wing of a gambling casino.
But everything is an illusion, a mirage in the middle of an angry scorching desert. The Italian sky above the bistro is a lighted ceiling, and the hint of Mediterranean sea wafting in the air has been pumped into the ventilation system.
It is nice to pretend for a short while and wonder what might have been - but trying to recapture a feeling from another lifetime against such a fantastical backdrop is a path guaranteed to end in crushing disappointment when the gargoyle of reality reasserts its ugly scowl.
For you see, Las Vegas is not really a city, but a breathing organism in equal measure chameleon and parasite. Its roots are shallow, a series of enormous props built up and torn down on The Strip, staffed by carneys and freak show barkers in polyester tuxedos.
And so it is with Shadow Creek - a perfect reflection of its soulless environment - a fantastical creation, an engineering miracle, a wondrous counterpoint to the smarmy cesspool of the casino culture . . . but still only a prop.
Ruthlessly efficient and antiseptic, the Shadow Creek experience begins in a stretch limousine with a guest list. A fellow writer's wife was not pre-approved and left behind in the driveway. There is nothing relaxed or left to chance - a well rehearsed golfing ballet for special guests only. No exceptions.
The ride down an ugly freeway does not look promising, especially when the driver turns off towards a dusty railroad yard, surrounded by hopeful “For Sale” signs in front of sun scorched parcels of flat sand and cactus.
A tiny and innocuous street sign points the way, a short stretch called “Shadow Creek Lane” that ends at a simple unmarked gate staffed by a severe looking guard. “Open Sesame” and in an instant, reality disappears.
Turning the corner, I suppose I was expecting something garish, cloying and over-the-top, but it looks like an understated residence converted into a clubhouse. The locker room flows off the main building awkwardly, as if it evolved as an afterthought.
No formalized bag drop or bleached blond greeters with headsets. Just a small driveway leading to a modest entrance.
Inside, a soothing and intimate seating area surrounded by wooden lockers.
Each has a name affixed to it, which would normally not bother me, except that a great effort has been made to highlight the list of celebrities who Shadow Creek counts as members. It feels forced - a clumsy demonstration of exclusivity to the plebeians.
We were met by the head professional, as nice a man as one could imagine and an excellent player who ascended from Old Del Monte to Spyglass before being lured to Las Vegas.
He seems calm and at ease, with an easy smile, yet looks can be deceiving. Later on, a delivery truck comes barreling down the access road and in an instant he is on the radio, barking to the guards that the offending driver be escorted off the premises and ordered never to return.
There is no question who is in charge at Shadow Creek.
Each foursome hits balls on their own private practice tee - with new Titleists. The turf is perfect, the targets beautifully defined. I inquired about our tee time: “Whenever we’re ready,” was the response.
My first reaction on the course was that Shadow Creek bears a striking resemblance to Sherwood. Both require a suspension of disbelief because of the strange environmental dichotomy. My body feels wicked heat, yet my eyes see a soothing creek meandering down a fairway lined with pine trees as if in Lake Tahoe.
Perhaps the illusion plays better in the winter, where the snow-covered peaks in the background give a different visual cue.
The other observation that struck me as we played the golf course is the feeling of absolute isolation of nearly every hole.
The golf course unfolds like 18 separate vignettes, although stylistically it blends together seamlessly - so much so that I have to concentrate hard to recall the sequence of holes.
Sometimes this can be perceived as a negative - implying that each hole is not as memorable as Pine Valley for example, but then there is a course like Chechessee Creek which is astoundingly good but flows along with the same common thread.
One aspect that drew attention to itself -at least in my mind - was the sensation of playing each hole in a separate canyon or culvert. It seems like every green complex was set in an intimate, tree-covered amphitheater, necessitating a walk straight up a hill to the cart path.
Shadow Creek constantly wriggles, changing direction so often that by the third hole, I was completely disoriented. It felt much like driving down the highways on Florida, with no landmarks in the distance to set your bearings - only dense foliage mile after mile.
Steve Wynn was apparently intent on making each hole its own presentation, but I wonder if the whole thing might have worked better if, after pushing up mountains of dirt on the perimeter of the property, they had thought about creating some meandering internal ridges for the holes to play over and around instead of individual valleys.
Because of this, it seems like there was a lack of internal hazards and contour in the fairways. Bunkers were set at the perimeter of the playing areas most of the time, clearly defining the preferred line to the hole.
However, because everything is presented in such a carefully arranged manner, the golf course has an antiseptic quality - a perfection that mirrors the Italian plaza at Caesars Palace. Perfect, but so flawless as to seem unreal.
Except for the trees. Thousands of them. It is said that Steve Wynn decided to triple the tree plantings on a whim, thinking the course looked too sparse. Yes, it is tree covered, which diverts attention away from the sensation of confinement and artificiality.
Oddly enough, for such a meticulously planned golf course, some of the trees are clearly blocking a portion of the putting surface, and in two cases are directly along the line of play in front of a bunker. In an effort to look as realistic as possible, perhaps Steve Wynn and Fazio purposely put in couple of Green Committee gaffes.
It is not surprising that my favorite hole on the golf course has the quirkiest feature. The 5th hole is a long par-4 with an elevated green with an entrance divided between a ramp on the left that nudges the ball onto the green, and a severe chute to the right.
Hit you approach one inch short and right and the ball is deposited to the bottom of a 30 foot fall-off, leaving a blind wedge back up the hill. Great stuff - and a fun feature for the #1 handicap hole.
But for the most part, there is a lack of clever feature work or unexpected surprises. It seems the goal was to create something of astounding beauty, and to that end Fazio did a wonderful job. It is simple, and in truth, remarkably restrained.
Is it full of pointless eye candy? No, everything is there for a purpose, I just prefer more strategic content. It seems designed as an idyllic walk in the park not intended to stretch anyone’s intellect.
Given the same opportunity, I shudder to think what Ted Robinson would have produced.
That said, the cliff top waterfall 17th looked like a set from the movie “Blue Lagoon.” A hopelessly phony and out of place architectural non-sequitur given the restraint of the prior 16 holes. But even so, it was breathtakingly gorgeous and I’ll be the first to admit it. Steve Wynn is a showman, and there was no way he could resist the big finish.
I walked off the 17th tee and pulled aside the shrubbery behind the back markers. It summed up the wonder of Shadow Creek in one look. On one side, a horribly ugly wasteland of filthy railroad cars and a factory belching smoke into the scorching afternoon heat.
Now turn around and look down at a sparkling pond, with a cascading waterfall misting the walkway to a tiny green. We were told that Michael Jackson would often sit on a rock in front of the falls and stare for hours at a time.
I averted my eyes under the theory that because nobody is quite sure what causes pedophilia, it was best not to take chances.
The 18th hole is certainly eye-catching, a reachable par-5 over a creek-fed pond. Strategically, it works well and visually, the whole look is stunning. The clubhouse appears simple and tasteful, with nothing that detracts from the hole.
Strangely, the only flashy element on the property is Steve Wynn’s house - an enormous structure on the far side of the 18th fairway with golden roof tiles and a garden area with not a leaf out of place.
Our group was trying to come up with an unqualified evaluation riding in the limo back to the hotel, but it was difficult to put our collective fingers on exactly what we thought.
Taken just as a golf course, it is not in the class of NGLA, Shinnecock or Pine Valley, mostly because there is no escaping the feeling of unreality and detachment from the environment. Yet for what it is, an engineering miracle of Lido-esque proportions, Shadow Creek almost belongs in its own category.
If it does not represent a truly great golf course, it stands as a demonstration what is possible with a genius architect and unlimited money.
And isn’t that what Las Vegas is really about?
New York New York is not really Manhattan, Caesars Palace is not really Italy, but the pastrami and pasta taste nearly as good.
Shadow Creek may not really be a great golf course in the purest sense of the word, but it is a great creation and completely unlike anything else in the world.
To that end, it deserves all the kudos it gets and more.