Columnist Dean Juipe: Casinos should rescue Senior Classic

Dean Juipe

Friday, April 27, 2001 | 9:53 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.

It is barely visible from the road, tucked into the River Mountains above Boulder City and near the exit from I-93 to Searchlight.

Signs warn that this area is "Private" and that the curious are not welcome. "Do Not Enter" states an additional sign, just before a locked gate that is controlled from within. A passerby's only chance to communicate with those on the inside is via a talk box that is stationed nearby.

This is Cascata, a luxury golf course that is so exclusive that its owner, Park Place Entertainment, neither announced its debut last November nor has it listed in the phone book.

The price tag on this gem was a staggering $52 million.

There are no members at Cascata and the only way you can play it is to have a credit line of at least $100,000 at one of Park Place's casinos, including Caesars Palace.

My visit Thursday to Cascata was predictably short-lived, yet it served the purpose of proving it was actually there.

It also gives me a chance to pinpoint precisely who the Las Vegas Senior Classic should go to in its last-ditch attempt to save its 16-year-old tournament: Not Park Place per se, but the city's casino industry as a whole.

The Senior Classic will not be back next year or ever again if a corporate sponsor isn't located in the next couple of months, and no one is in better shape -- or has greater resources -- to come to the rescue than the collective casinos. In fact, they should voluntarily agree to provide the $1 million per year the Senior Classic needs to survive.

Las Vegas is a golf resort and a golf destination for thousands of tourists. From the casinos' standpoint, when someone says "Las Vegas" they want people to think of gambling, dining and entertainment that clearly includes golf.

Golf brings people to the city and those people frequently rely on their host casino to arrange, if not outright provide, a round of golf or two. In exchange, the customer stays and spends at that same casino.

This deal is so profitable for the casino industry that private courses built solely for casino customers, such as Cascata, are now fairly prevalent in the valley. The industry also employes pro-level golfers, such as the Venetian's sponsorship of Ray Beallo, to play with and accompany its high-end clientele.

When the Senior Classic is televised, it's Las Vegas being marketed and it's the image of Las Vegas as a golfing paradise that's exploited to the folks back in Des Moines. They, in turn, plan a trip to Las Vegas and spend whatever they can afford to gamble on games that are stilted to the house's advantage.

The casinos reap the benefits, and, in theory, there might be fewer benefits to be reaped if an event such as the Las Vegas Senior Classic ceased to exist.

The tournament is good for Las Vegas and the casinos should recognize it as such. They should not let it fall by the wayside.

They should step forward and share the minimal expense, by their standards, that it would take to keep the tournament alive. They should do it even without considering that it's a tax-deductible advertising expense.

They should do it out of pride.