Fear and Golfing in Las Vegas: The Dream 18

Cascata: Rees Jones jolts the desert.

It was an ambitious project. Choose the 18 best holes, but use each course only once and each hole must correspond to its real number. It’s a strong list — and a Dream Track you can play mentally as you swing your way across Southern Nevada. By the way, it’s a par 67, with a yardage of 5,916 — the longest Short Course in the West.
# 1
BADLANDS (Diablo) It’s only 300 yards from the gold tees and asks for little more than a 5-wood from the tee, but you can’t see the green until you’re standing over your short-iron approach to a target surrounded by native desert and fronted by a deep ravine. It’s the kind of sneaky short par 4 that defines much of desert golf, puts the player off balance for his or her first shot out of the bag.

# 2
RIO SECCO Before management switched the nines on this stellar Rees Jones effort in the hills south of town, this brutal, 460-yard par 4 was buried deep in the round. But now that it’s on the front side and in your face right away, we’ve got to honor this bruiser. A bit downhill but rife with trouble — shoot-the-gap bunkers off the tee, a monster hybrid approach for most mortals — it can derail a round right away.

# 3
RHODES RANCH Possibly the best 3-par in town — a multi-tiered green surrounded by water and OB. We’ve seen everything from Dan McDonald’s hole-in-one to an 11 posted on this 227-yarder

# 4
BEAR’S BEST Jack’s 229-yard replica of No. 7 at Old Works in Montana is simply beautiful, right down to the shimmering black sand in the bunkers that frame the green.

# 5
REFLECTION BAY More Jack. He calls Reflection his best Southern Nevada effort to date, and it’s easy to see why — the entire track is impeccably kept and several holes that border the lake itself are beyond photogenic, including 8, 9, 17 and 18. For our money, the course hits its high point at No. 5, a 528-yard par 5 playing slightly uphill into a box canyon, with a beautifully rendered manmade stream defining its right side, bunkers sliced into a slope on the left and a fairway that funnels to a narrow layup spot about 75 yards from the tucked, tumbling green. It’s the perfect spot to take a deep breath, listen to the whispering waterfall and absorb the desert’s quietude.

# 6
WYNN Fazio used five 3-pars in his re-creation on the site of the old Desert Inn, and each one is memorable — and challenging, even this short 163-yard shot you’ll most likely want over.

# 7
CASCATA Rees Jones took the muse he heard at Secco and turned it into an otherworldly siren song, a high-end experience hugging the red hills near Boulder City. At this sumptuous short hole, par should be all but assured, but with water front and left, a U-shaped bunker just short of the green, a sheer hillside left and views to forever beyond, there’s more than enough to distract you from that little wedge shot. It’s pure desert bliss.

# 8
WOLF CREEK (in Mesquite) Like most holes here, this one involves badlands-in-the-Himalayas topography. The tee shot drops so far, the 248-yard shot is but an iron to a water-protected green. Don’t get cute here.

# 9
ANGEL PARK (PALM) This is a career-best kind of course, but this little 332-yarder always seems to derail your bid for immortality. Don’t try to bite too much off the dogleg, and you’re halfway to a birdie 3.

# 10
ROYAL LINKS Yes, it does justice to the Road Hole, which has seen many an Old Course hopeful self destruct. Aim over the scoreboard off the tee. And, by all means, stay out of the bunkers.

# 11
SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS It’s private, but too compelling not to include. The tee box overlooks the entire Las Vegas Valley with a view of the ever-evolving Strip. With a drop of more than 100 feet, a well-struck tee shot can achieve spectacular hang time. There was talk that owner-developer Garry Goett was going to build a special wine cellar into the rocks behind the tee, but it was finally determined that even played stone sober, the hole was challenging enough.

# 12
REVERE (Lexington) Staring down at the Las Vegas Valley throughout the hole makes this 422-yarder, called “One if by Land” a 4-par that deserves a bit of extra “reverence.”

# 13
THE FALLS Nemesis Nicklaus had more typical terrain on which to route Reflection Bay, but Weiskopf had to get radical at The Falls, especially
on the back nine, which shares rocky hills with bighorn sheep. No. 13 is gutsy, almost goofy; reach the end of the fairway from its hyper-elevated tee, and it’s an easy pitch to a green surrounded on three sides by cliffs. Come up short and you’ve got to go over (or through) a one-eyed rock formation.

# 14
TPC AT THE CANYONS The second of two 4-pars with blind tee shots over a yawning ravine. Even at 365 yards, this dogleg-right can get nasty when the wind is howling.

# 15
PAIUTE (WOLF) Pete Dye serves up a high-desert echo of his most famous hole, No. 17 at Sawgrass, though here the carry is longer and the island green larger and surrounded not by swamp water, but clear, cool artesian wellspring. On a scorching afternoon, it’s all we can do to keep from jumping in to cool off.

# 16
TUSCANY The finishing hole gets all the ink, but this is the one you’ll remember — if you give it a rip and try to drive the 299 yards. Come up short and you go to battle in bunker hell.

# 17
SHADOW CREEK Call it the Rene Zellweger of Vegas 3-pars — petite, pretty and packing a pistol of hair-trigger danger. No more than 7-iron is needed to negotiate the lake from your tee-box vantage point on a grassy ridge, but the waterfall behind the course’s smallest putting surface plays tricks on the eye and mind. It’s easy to look up, dip the shoulder and chunk it short or pump one into the babbling brook, but then again, maybe you’re just looking for an excuse to reload and enjoy this miniature paradise as long as you can. After all, the round is almost over, and you may not come this way again.

# 18
BALI HAI We both love and fear the 4-pars just off The Strip, where five top out in the plus-400 stratosphere. But Bali’s 486-yard final hole, with its sliver of a green, water in front and giant white-sand bunker brings any round to either a rousing or definitive close. Likewise, it ends our Dream 18 round with a shot to remember — nothin’ like trying to stick a fairway wood close for a chance at your last birdie of the day.