Columnist Dean Juipe: Picturesque new course ready to go

Dean Juipe

Monday, Oct. 9, 2000 | 12:08 p.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.

It was 1991 and anyone who had ever set foot on what was then called Sunrise Golf Club had an inclining of what might happen. The course, now known as Stallion Mountain, was set up absurdly easy for pro-level players and the PGA Tour was coming to town.

For that one year, Sunrise was in the three-course rotation for the Las Vegas Invitational. Having predicted a low, low round would come at Sunrise, it was hardly surprising when Chip Beck matched the all-time tour record with a 59.

It may have been the most embarrassing moment in Las Vegas sports history.

The tour is back in town this week for what is now called the Invensys Classic at Las Vegas and there's a new course in the rotation, Southern Highlands. A visit there over the weekend calmed fears that another Beck-like round was in store.

"This course will be a challenge, although not quite the challenge it could be if they let me set it up right," course superintendent Riley Stottern said. "I think we'll see a few hot rounds, but it's more of a local-knowledge course."

Southern Highlands may be the antithesis of what was Sunrise. While the latter is flat, Southern Highlands -- which is located 14 miles south of the city and near the community of Sloan -- is undulating and beautiful. The current course record is a 65 by tour member and Las Vegan Bob May.

The course, which opened April 1, measures an astounding 7,381 yards from the back tees, although the pros won't play from quite that distance. (Sidebar: If PGA Tour pros aren't playing the back tees, who would?)

"They don't want any tricky pin placements either," Stottern added. "But the reason for that and not playing the black tees is that there's 170-some-odd players, most of them amateurs, that we've got to move through here each day."

The course looks difficult enough to avoid any 59s.

It's also private, is limited to 360 members, was designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr., and has its home lots priced from $430,000 to $600,000. It's very upscale.

Less so, sorry to say, is the Desert Inn Country Club, which is hosting a tour event for the final time. While they haven't abandoned or let the course go, it does look a little less pristine than it did in its heyday.

And the neglected and debris-strewn parking lot is a disaster.

It'll be tough on the players, just as it currently is for sentimental Las Vegans, to step out on the D.I. course and see it for a final time. The D.I. may as well stand for Deserted Inn, what with the casino and hotel already shackled.

The Las Vegas Founders' Club, which runs the PGA Tour stop here, is facing a crisis of sorts with the D.I. about to be plowed over and few, if any, courses in town willing to accommodate the pros even one week a year. This tournament no longer utilizes the Las Vegas Country Club or Spanish Trail because the members object, and finding a replacement for the D.I. won't be all that easy.

Perhaps the yet-to-open Bali Hi course on the Strip near the airport will come to the rescue.

One thing about it, Stallion Mountain is out. It had its chance and the 59 it surrendered can never be lived down.

Golf is all about challenges and that course offered none.