Contributing expert Ken Van Vechten writes:
Though many golf courses will not accept single-player reservations online, a good number do over the phone. If you're allowed only one call, forget your attorney and try one of the courses that follow, all of which cluster up near the top of the heap when it comes to great Vegas golf.
Bear's Best Las Vegas brings together 18 of Jack Nicklaus' "best" holes from courses he designed elsewhere in the American West and Mexico. The amalgam of holes from here and there, crossed with a project conceived to accommodate high-end housing, negates any type of flowing, organic, walk-in-the-park potential. But the challenge, service, conditioning, and the fact that it doesn't sport one throwaway hole, make it a Vegas must-play. The black-slag bunkers from Old Works in Anaconda, Montana, compete with a handful of holes replicated from Scottsdale's Desert Mountain, give it top billing ... as do the able caddies. Play it now before the housing net is fully lowered. Tel: 702/804-8500, 866/385-8500
DragonRidge*, a private country club set within the hills of Henderson and still accepting outside play, is an oddity. Designed by legend Jay Morrish and up-and-comer David Druzisky, DragonRidge is more schizophrenic than any of the other acclaimed courses in Las Vegas that leave you scratching your head and wondering, "Brilliance or bull?" The latter condition is because of housing, which in some places hugs the course like a cheap shirt on a humid day. Genius appears in the mad way the designers brought into play fairway-splicing arroyos, aerie-like tee boxes, and an insanely frustrating, short, partially or wholly blind par 4 (the 10th) that turns out to be, upon subsequent play, nothing short of brilliance perfected. Tel: 702/614-4444, 877/855-1505
Las Vegas Paiute serves up three courses by Pete Dye, and each is unique in playing style. Wolf, the newest, rewards those who aren't afraid to hit it hard and deal with the consequences. Elder statesman Snow Mountain is beguiling, offering up risk-reward opportunities aplenty and a closing three holes that are as good as any in the desert. Sun Mountain is, according to club officials, the most difficult of the three, despite what the USGA's numbers indicate. Excluding a signature par-3 island green on Wolf, the three Paiute courses are about the least Dye of any of Pete's courses anywhere. Located on Native American land northwest of town, Paiute is refreshingly free of housing and other experience-stifling urban encroachments. Tel: 866/284-2833
Primm Valley's Lakes and Desert courses were designed by Shadow Creek (and Wynn Las Vegas) artisan Tom Fazio. While there is no way to substitute either of the California-side-of-the-border tracks for what many call the best public course not called Pebble Beach or Pinehurst #2, Fazio is Fazio and Primm Valley provides a taste of what's behind the Shadow Secrecy. Hard to tell whether the bunkering, doglegging, or multiple-drive angles carry the day at these courses just outside town that beat most in town. Tel: 800/386-7867
Reflection Bay at Lake Las Vegas is a for-that-site Nicklaus design with lakeside, hillside, and arroyo-bound holes. Gone is the Nicklaus of old whose courses played best for those who played like Jack and in is an emotive routing that will destroy the foolhardy while giving thoughtful players, even those lacking monstrous length, a realistic chance on each shot. And in what might be the ultimate test for a course's place in the pantheon, Reflection Bay's memorability quotient is off the meter. Memorability quotient? Play through the course, in your mind, a day or two after playing it live and if every hole rolls out, first through 18th, in Dolby fidelity and HD clarity, that's an Olympian memorability quotient. Tel: 702/740-4653, 877/698-4653
TPC at the Canyons is one of the handful of courses around the country that allow u
