Undercard: Vegas vs. Scottsdale
Dirty Fight in the DesertYou could say I went looking for trouble. And I found it. It was a blindingly sunny Las Vegas day at Royal Links when I threw the first punch, half-joking to a table full of folks I’d just met — and a few I’ve known for a long, maybe too long, time. “I hate Arizona golf,” I spouted, as I often do, to get the steam rising to the top of Scottsdale apologist and FG freelancer Ken Van Vechten’s head. You see, I’m a Las Vegas guy, through and through. No same-old Phoenix-area desert tracks for me. Sin City proves you can build courses that don’t have to look like the surroundings but are still part of them — plus, feel fun, challenging and offer an “experience” to remember. So why should Las Vegas and its surrounds be crowned the king of desert golf? Simple. 22 words. Variety. Cascata. Shadow Creek. Reflection Bay. Royal Links. Primm Valley. Wolf Creek. Wynn. Bali Hai. Rhodes Ranch. Angel Park. Bear’s Best. Paiute. Not one of them alike, each with its own well-crafted — and well-documented in these FG pages over the years — credentials. Plus, when you’re comparing destinations as a whole, is there really any comparison? It’s Vegas, baby! It’s the city people visit to vacation, if you know what I mean. But apparently the Vegas vs. Scottsdale question isn’t such a no-brainer for everyone (although my new acquaintances at the table thought the decision was an easy one, since I found out they worked in the Arizona tourism industry). No, it turns out it’s the golf equivalent of Ginger vs. Mary Ann or The Stones vs. The Beatles. Most folks love one and feel less than impressed by the other. So I had a heavyweight fight on my hands with Mr. Van Vechten, who, coincidentally, is currently finishing a book about Las Vegas golf. And his eight bitter punches caught more jaw than I expected. You be the judge: Punch One: Courses — This one is quite simple: Troon North, We-Ko-Pa, the Boulders, Grayhawk, Eagle Mountain, Dinosaur Mountain, Las Sendas, TPC Scottsdale Stadium — just the tip of the iceberg as Phoenix-Scottsdale has three, maybe four times the available courses as does Las Vegas, and not a one of ’em here requires you to pony up three Bens for a good night’s sleep so you can then pony up five Bens for golf the next day. “Second”-tier golf courses here are named Wigwam Gold by Robert Trent Jones the Master or Raven by Panks-Graham, and another is a little something by Pete Dye that is home course to the Arizona State University Sun Devils. The true public golf is good playable golf, as well. Finally, the Valley of the Sun offers desert golf, which seems logical since it is a desert. No one thought it somehow an aesthetic or playing-quality coup to build an Eiger of faux rock and then pour Niagara over the top of it. Punch Two: The Living Desert — Sure it’s hot in the summer, but not Hades hot like you-know-where. And no one will ever tee it up on Jan. 1 with the thermo pegged at 48 and a 50-mile-per-hour wind tearing through from Canada. The Sonoran Desert is a lush tropical oasis compared to the higher, colder, hotter, harsher and largely barren Mojave. Summertime rains kiss the rugged hillsides green. Wildflowers and cactus erupt into a rainbow of color about the time Vegas golfers are still a good month away from being able to think about shorts. In a word: Gorgeous. Punch Three: The Pro Show — Scottsdale is home to the most raucous, most popular and most heavily attended professional tournament on the face of the globe, and that FBR Open is one of the longest-tenured tourneys on the men’s calendar. Plus, the PGA Tour returns for a second time in the fall. The LPGA plays one of its most important events out at Superstition Mountain. The Skins Game and one of the Senior majors started here. Such players as Phil Mickelson, Fred Couples, Tom Lehman, Geoff Ogilvy and Grace Park, to name a few, have a collegiate or residential tie, or both, to the area. Heck, Las Vegas’ most famous resident golfer attended college down the road in Tucson, and Tiger, once a Butch Harmon student, only hits Sin City now to extract money for his foundation. Punch Four: Ping — A home-grown, family-owned company that makes some of the most acclaimed sticks in the game does its thing in Phoenix. That’s not only cool, it’s All-American. Anyone can walk in and get a club-fitting, and the booked-months-in-advance factory tour could only be improved if the Karsten family made like the Busches and handed out free samples. Punch Five: Sports — The Pac-10, Super Bowls, the Fiesta Bowl, the Cactus League, pro golf, auto racing, a Major League Baseball team with a World Series banner in the rafters, Spring Training, a powerhouse NBA franchise, plus an NFL team that is starting to show signs of being an NFL team. And while hockey might not be a major sport to many Americans, Phoenix has the NHL, too, and the team is lead by the Great One, himself, who also happens to be an avid golfer. True, Vegas did stage ThugFest ’07, a.k.a. the NBA All-Star Game. Punch Six: Real Resorts — Vegas accommodation history is the Golden Gate and the El Cortez. The Valley of the Sun’s reply comes in the form of the Wigwam and the best-anywhere Camelback Inn, Marriott’s pride and joy. Want it big, bold and eye-popping? JW Marriott Desert Ridge. Richly chic? The Phoenician. Five Stars and no stuffiness? Fairmont’s Scottsdale Princess. Feel like being a part of the desert but with 400 thread-count sheets? The Boulders. Hyatt Regency? Check. Ritz? Right there. Four Seasons? Uh huh. Biltmore? Got it. It’s called class for a reason. Punch Seven: Culture — While it is hard to beat the Pinball Hall of Fame and Clyde Barrow’s bullet-riddled and blood-stained shirt for cultural magnetism, Phoenix and environs do try to respond with, oh, the Heard Museum, perhaps the greatest artistic, cultural and sociological institute dedicated to Native Americans, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West, which is about as far from Bob Stupak’s vision of architectural excellence as is possible without moving into a fourth dimension. Also, history started here with the Hohokam building a thriving urban-agricultural community by carving out of the desert hardscape an elaborate system of irrigation channels. Several hundred years later dirt was moved in Vegas so the Mob could dispose of its “troubles.” And if a golfer can’t go a week without needing to call Gamblers Anonymous, there are casinos here, too. Punch Eight: In Celebration — Las Vegas’ coolest golf shop? It started in Scottsdale. • • • So there you have it. A few below-the-belt jabs, but all in all a strong defense, although we disagree on quite a few points. And that’s why, when you look at the scorecard, Las Vegas still comes out on top. Las Vegas Phoenix/Scottsdale 10 Setting/Atmosphere 10 reader comments
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Signature SeriesDecember 2007
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