I’m walking down the steps at the Paiute clubhouse, taking in the vistas that surround the enormous golf facility and an elder gent tells me I should be glad I wasn’t there the day before.

“It was awful,” he said. “50 mile per hour winds and freezing. This is nice today.”

With that, our Paiute journey was off to an optimistic start. Every single one of the 36 holes, however, seemed to be into the wind that day. Bear in mind, we played 36 different holes that Wednesday, navigating our way around two of the three courses available. The wind may not have hit 50 mph, but it wasn’t too far short of that mark.

One would think such a display of Mother Nature would have made for a miserable experience, but it was quite the contrary. While the wind did lift our scores beyond a normal range, the course was a delight. Paiute was a real man’s golf course, with lots of long par-4s and lots of large, undulating greens. While no one hole was particularly memorable, the reason for that was they were all rather memorable.

Both courses we played were extremely similar, so I can’t say it matters which one you would play if you ever went. Just be prepared for stunning desert views from atop a golf course that fits naturally into its surroundings. The course is far enough away from Las Vegas that it provides a feeling of being out in the middle of nowhere, where they would have buried dead bodies in a mafia movie.

Our AGB Tour stableford golf tournament tightened up that day, with Sean Walsh making up ground on myself, the leader. I believe he was within four points of the lead, with Chris Watson a little further back. All this set the stage for Thursday’s final round at a course where the PGA Tour pros had recently done battle. You guessed it; we got to play Shadow Creek.