The Wolf at the Las Vegas Paiute Golf Resort

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Even before Wolf, the Las Vegas Paiute Golf Resort had gained high renown from golfers around the world. Architect Pete Dye had already sculpted two top-notch tracks called Snow Mountain and Sun Mountain, which host the Nevada State Amateur Championship. And with a magnificent clubhouse and excellent service attitude, the experience was pure golf delight.

But Wolf adds a new, elevated dimension. Already cited as one of Dye’s best works, and one of the top new courses you can play by Golf Magazine, Wolf hosted Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf competition between Annika Sorenstam and Karrie Webb, and has aspirations of hosting professional golf events. Wolf combines extreme length with great scoring opportunities, and blends lush wideopen fairways with disastrous must-not-misshere
areas. According to Dick Huff, the Paiute Golf Resort’s General Manager, the USGA is in the process of extending their yardage limitations on par-4s to accommodate the length of today’s golfers. Wolf features four par-4s over
490 yards and another only 486 from the Tournament tees. To ease an otherwise harsh perception created by pointed mounding that surrounds the course, beautiful mission poppies cover the landscape in bright red and orange, with other flowers adding purple and yellow accents. Yuccas and Joshua trees abound, creating a truly unique desert golf setting. The course offers five different tee boxes, ensuring everyone will have fun if the proper tees are selected.

As with the other Paiute tracks, Wolf offers generous landing areas off the tee, and a good tee shot will always set up an alluring shot to the green. Fact is, the first six holes of Wolf offer good scoring opportunities, with short-iron approach shots and a reachable par-5, the 555-yard 6th, which plays downhill and down wind. But when you reach the seventh tee, you will feel Wolf’s first bite. Playing 495 yards from the Tournament tees and 470 from the black, your tee shot must carry an intimidating bunker directly ahead, and miss the bail-out bunkers on the right. If successful, you’ll be left with a mid-iron uphill approach shot to a green that is difficult to see and well guarded by a deep bunker on the left.

With intimidation beginning to set in, Wolf offers its signature par-3 hole, the 206- yard eighth. It literally feels like you’re entering a war zone, with sharp mounding surrounding the hole and the green on a shelf with a deep bank off the right side. With the pin back right, it is not a wise place to try and hit it close. The front side ends with another of the 490 plus par-4, a dogleg right with bunkers down the right discouraging a short-cut attempt off the tee.

Playing Wolf is like being stalked by one. The tribal leaders had this in mind when naming it, as Paiute tradition appoints a name according to personality. They did a tremendous job, as Wolf seems to lurk at every turn, lying in wait for the first sign of weakness. The back side plays 3,809 yards from the Tournament tees and 3,522 from the black, starting out with a par-5 that demands an accurate tee shot that must avoid an ominous bunker in the right center of the fairway. A long, narrow green challenges any long attempt to reach it, where only a perfect shot will find its bentgrass. The 15th hole is a short 156-yard par-3 from the black tees. The problem is…it’s surrounded by water!…a Dye signature island green.

If Wolf has not taken its prey before reaching its final holes, it comes at it with two headlong attacks. The par-4 17th plays only 486 yards, but a hidden ravine dissects the fairway and the only choices are a long, risky carry
or lay-up for a long iron approach shot to a diagonally slanting green. Then the 18th, a par-4 which plays 496 yards from the front of the Tournament teeing ground with water down the right side, will demand the last remaining
element of resolve to successfully elude Wolf’s hungry jaws.

The Las Vegas Paiute Golf Resort is proving to be one of the finest golf destinations in the world, and the Wolf’s howl is being heard among the calls of our nation’s greatest golf courses.

 
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