Columnist Dean Juipe: DI finds itself on death row

Dean Juipe

Friday, June 23, 2000 | 10:35 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

Las Vegas continually feels the need to reinvent itself. It takes pride in knowing what's here today will almost certainly be gone tomorrow.

As such, once-beautiful casinos inevitably are imploded and replaced by even more magnificent structures, which will, in turn, some day be leveled.

It's a repetitive cycle of boom and doom, an idiosyncratic pattern peculiar to this magnificently exploitative city.

Yet it can be bewildering, especially when a landmark with the stature and class of the Desert Inn Golf Club finds itself not just on the endangered list but on the short road to oblivion.

What had been suspected for years -- and greatly feared since the DI was acquired by Steve Wynn -- became reality Thursday when he announced the casino was closing (to be more lavishly rebuilt, perhaps with a lake) and the golf course would soon follow.

Now that the oft-circulated rumor is linked to reality, there's a sense of remorse that will only ripple until the 2001 D-day. This is Southern Nevada's most famous and revered golf course, and within a year it will be torn asunder.

It's as if nothing -- aside from the pursuit of the almighty dollar -- is sacred in Las Vegas.

As it pertains to Steve the Conqueror, this will be the second time he has laid a Strip golf course to waste. He put the Dunes golf course to permanent rest to build the Bellagio, and now he has topped it by plotting the demise of the granddaddy of area courses.

The 7,111-yard course at the Desert Inn was built in 1952 and immediately received national acclaim for hosting the PGA Tour's annual Tournament of Champions. Eventually the course would host events by all three of the major professional tours, and it is still used by the LPGA and as one of two satellite courses for the PGA Tour's annual Las Vegas Invitational.

But with Strip parcels scarce and Wynn determined to recreate the Desert Inn as an exotic gambling and resort destination, the golf course became sacrificial. It was inevitable, especially when the grounds were purchased by an entrepreneur with Wynn's cold-hearted track record.

There was a time, of course, when the Strip offered a trio of eye-catching golf courses before expansion-crazed gambling entities began their pillage. First to go was the Tropicana, a spiraling layout that bit the dust when the MGM was intent on building the world's largest hotel.

Wynn knocked off the Dunes and the DI is next. Of some consolation is the fact Walters Golf is building what appears to be an exciting course south of Mandalay Bay on Las Vegas Boulevard, and that facility will be open before the Desert Inn hears its last rites.

To those Las Vegans and golfers who are calloused about such things, the fact that one Strip course will debut as another is plowed under is a trade-off worthy of comparison to tearing down an aging casino and replacing it with a glamourous one that has all the modern amenities.

Fair enough.

But losing the Desert Inn Golf Club hurts, even if its hefty greens fee kept the typical player from gaining access on any sort of regular basis. The new course farther down the road will be nice, but the DI is one that will never really be replaced.

It'll be an emotional day when it ceases to exist.