Summerlin-area residents have their choice of favored golf courses

The good news for Highland Falls Golf Course is that the Sun City Summerlin course was chosen this year as the Best of Las Vegas by readers of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The bad news for Angel Park Golf Club is that the 36-hole course, which sits just outside the boundary of Summerlin, has fallen to second place after being No. 1 in the hearts of readers for each of the previous 13 years.

But overall, Summerlin and its immediate environs still come up as the ideal location for those who enjoy excellent golf conditions. And that's nothing to take lightly when you consider the quantity and quality of golf courses in Southern Nevada.

From a geographical standpoint, Angel Park is not quite a part of the Summerlin master-planned community . To be split-hairs precise, it sits just across the street from Summerlin at 100 S. Rampart Blvd . Highland Falls, 10201 Sun City Blvd. , is well within the geographical boundaries of Summerlin.

Most meaningful, however, is the fact that readers of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, from all sectors of S outhern Nevada, consider the two best golf courses in Las Vegas to be right smack within such close proximity. And having played the two courses, I can vouch for their recognition. Both are extremely challenging, enjoyable and especially scenic.

Angel Park was designed by Arnold Palmer, one of the greatest professional golfers ever to compete. Highland Falls was designed by another golfing great, Billy Casper, in conjunction with famed planner Greg Nash. But as excellent as the two courses are to play, both provide a bonus that is incomparable ---- the picturesque beauty of Summerlin, which adds the perfect backdrop.

And therein lies another factor of significance. Summerlin, the master-planned community that consists of 22,500 acres, is home to nine golf courses, each of which basks in scenic splendor. Moreover, like Angel Park, there are several other courses that sit on the fringe of Summerlin and equally benefit from its majestic landscape.

But the annual Best of Las Vegas survey also includes a second category, the choice of the Las Vegas Review-Journal staff. And this year that choice is the Wolf Course, 10325 Nu Wav Kaiv Blvd. , in the Las Vegas Paiute Golf Resort. The course is well beyond the boundary of Summerlin, but it, too, is in a setting of splendor at the foothills of Mount Charleston, just off U.S. Highway 95.

The Wolf Course is one of three golf courses in Southern Nevada owned by the Paiute Tribe. At 7,604 yards, the course also is the longest in total yards in the state. It was described by the Las Vegas Review-Journal staff as "one of the most challenging" courses, adding that from an aesthetic viewpoint, it "presents a stunning contrast to the desert and mountain backdrop."

While the Wolf Course proves that Southern Nevada can proudly boast some of the most scenic and challenging golf courses in America, whether they are in Summerlin or beyond, how the course came about is an interesting story in itself. In fact, if ever there was a rags-to-riches saga apropos to the writings of the great Horatio Alger of yesteryear, this is it.

There's a marvelous treasure of data that explains how the once poverty-stricken Paiute Tribe was able to convert its meager resources into a successful golf course business. And that came about in fairly recent times, only as far back as the mid-1980s, when Congress gave the Paiute Tribe the OK to add 3,800 acres of surplus federal land to its reservation. Prior to that the tribe had been confined to a reservation of approximately 10 acres along Main Street, just a mile and a half north of downtown Las Vegas.

The new property became known as the Snow Mountain Reservation. With wise counseling and some financial assistance, the Paiute Tribe developed the property into a model golf resort. In 1994 the Paiutes opened Snow Mountain Course, the first 18 holes of what will eventually be a 72-hole golfers' paradise, designed by Pete Dye. Two years later Sun Mountain, another 18-hole course, opened.

Wolf Course, the piece de resistance, opened in 2000.

Herb Jaffe was an op-ed columnist and investigative reporter for most of his 39 years at the Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. He is the author of the novels "Falling Dominoes" and "One At A Time." Contact him at hjaffe@cox.net.