Beating water trouble

Monday, July 8, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

Anyone who's ever tried to keep a lawn green in Southern Nevada will sympathize with the Wild Horse Golf Club.

The venerable Henderson golf course's grass turns brown in patches from high salt content in the groundwater.

But club officials are giving the course a face-lift they hope will improve the turf and save water in the process.

Wild Horse closed Monday to replant and replenish the turf that will draw on recycled wastewater.

The club has ripped up the old bent grass and started planting tiff dwarf hybrid Bermuda, said General Manager Daryl Driscoll. This Bermuda resists heat and drought and doesn't gobble so much water and fertilizer.

Other golf courses in Henderson, such as Seven Hills and Legacy, are also switching to Bermuda hybrids, he said.

Wild Horse, which has already spent $2.7 million building a new 15,000-square-foot clubhouse, will improve the turf, irrigation system and cart paths.

The club and Nevada Power Co. shared the $2 million cost to replace a wastewater line from the Clark County Sanitation District, Driscoll said. Wild Horse contributed $490,000 -- or 19 percent -- to supply the sculpted green mounds with treated wastewater.

From now until Aug. 8, the club plans to spend $1.3 million, Driscoll said.

By installing new turf, the club will save its well water and transform brown spots dotting the grounds, said course supervisor Dennis Wesseldine.

"It's a better quality water," Wesseldine said of the county's treated sewage that eventually trickles into ponds along the course. The treated wastewater also will provide plenty of relief for wild birds nesting on the course and other small animals, such as rabbits.

Before, the greens had drowned in water running eastward across the valley, said Wesseldine, who has a plant science degree from the University of Florida.

Salts and bicarbonates, the substances that turn Southern Nevada's water "hard," made it impossible to keep the golf course healthy.

"It makes it impossible for it to grow," Wesseldine said. "That's why there's no agriculture in this valley."

To combat salts invading the turf through groundwater, crews had to flood the fairways with water -- a waste of time, water and fertilizer.

The groundwater quality forced Wild Horse to install four million feet of drainage lines to pull water away from the roots and coax it into ponds and lakes dotting the 18-hole course.

By placing heavy plastic over 6.5 acres of fairway topped with 18 inches of soil, the grass roots will be protected from the salty groundwater.

More than 200 trees, most of them pine, will also dot the fairways.

Wild Horse was one of the earliest golf courses in Las Vegas. Once at the heart of what became Green Valley, it was originally known as Paradise Valley Country Club.

Then the Showboat hotel-casino bought it and promoted it as the Showboat Country Club.

Ken Mizuno of Ken International became the next and most notorious owner of the 103-acre property that was then dubbed Royal Kenfield. Mizuno once owned properties such as the Indian Wells Country Club in Palm Springs, Calif.

Mizuno pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas during the fall of 1993 to charges of money laundering and transporting fraudulently obtained foreign currency from Japan to the United States from 1988 to 1991.

The U.S. government seized the country club because of Mizuno's involvement in the $800 million international money laundering scheme.

National Golf Properties purchased the course at a federal auction in April 1994 for a reported $11.2 million. Its subsidiary, American Golf Properties, runs 250 championship golf courses worldwide.

"We hope to make this course one of the best in the world," Driscoll said.

While the course is closed, players can use the driving range and enjoy a barbecue for $6. The club's Mixed Grill is also open so guests can sit on the verandas and watch progress made on the course's makeover.