While among some golfing friends recently, each golfer was asked to quickly name their favorite golf course. Names like Wolf Creek, Pebble Beach and Kingsbarns were tossed about. The conversation begged another question: how does one quickly determine the best golf course they’ve ever played?

Shadow Creek is currently my favorite golf course, but the reasons why are difficult to put into words. I’ll give it a shot, though, for the sake of any loyal readers who give a darn.

Shadow Creek is in Las Vegas, but when you are there, you don’t feel like you are anywhere in particular. You feel like you’ve been transported to a heavenly world. You have no sense of direction or space, such as a thought that downtown is that way or this way, or the such-and-such mountain is over there to the East. There is just you standing on a golf course and having fun. Is that why I loved it so much? In part, yes.

I also loved the feel of playing the course itself. It was difficult to score well, but not painfully difficult like some tough courses. There are treacherous courses out there that pump your heart full of defiant, challenge-seeking urges, but also make you feel like you can’t wait to get off of them. I could have been shooting 110 at Shadow Creek and still constantly wishing the round would never end.

I suppose if I analyze that feeling, it stems from the golf ball primarily always being in play. Even though making par from the spot it rests may be near impossible, you always have a chance to give it a go. The day I played Shadow, I played really well, but never felt a need to be perfectly precise over any particular shot. There was an absence of pressure that exists when meandering around some notoriously crippling courses.

By the time I finished playing the Tom Fazio design, I felt that when Steve Wynn envisioned the property, he envisioned transporting Augusta National to Las Vegas. From the clubhouse to the 18th green, I knew it was as close as I will ever get to playing Augusta. The course, however, never appears to be a copycat of Augusta in terms of hole design. It’s more of a subtle, or not so subtle, environmental vibe that is undeniably in the Augusta vein.

I will continue to discuss this wonderful golf course in future posts, as it warrants much more writing than I can fit in one or two blog posts.