Byrnes, who graduated from the University of Colorado on an Eisenhower-Evans caddie scholarship and who played briefly for the CU golf team, shot an efficient even-par 72 on the day he hosted a foursome at Cascata in early January. There’s a fair share of trouble on the course, but it’s certainly still possible to score well.
One thing you won’t see at Cascata is many fellow players. We were one of just three groups on the course on a relatively calm 60-degree day. In all, head professional Ken Wright said about 13,500 rounds per year are played at Cascata, or an average of between 40 and 50 per day considering it’s closed on Tuesdays and at selected times of the year for course maintenance. Spring and fall are the busiest times, but even then it would be a stretch to call Cascata “crowded.”
We pulled up to the 37,000-square-foot Tuscan-style clubhouse, where an attendant greeted us at the curb, taking care of the car, our clubs, etc. Then it’s on to the clubhouse, which is unlike any other you’ve likely seen. Just after entering, below a grass-roof atrium, there’s no missing the full-blown, no-holds-barred river, the end product of a 418-foot waterfall that cascades down a mountainside behind the practice range. Huge windows on the back side of the clubhouse reveal a spectacular view of the waterfall — the word Cascata is Italian for waterfall — and the river as it meanders down a hillside and flows beneath a walkway in the clubhouse.
Bypassing the cigar lounge for the time being, it’s on to the locker room, where a personalized locker awaits, just to the side of one of the flat-screen TVs on the wall. After an accommodating attendant graciously offers to change out the spikes of my golf shoes — and throws in a nice polish job, to boot — we go down one level, get in a cart, exit through the automatic doors and go up to the range. There, we chat with our forecaddie, Heath Neal, who has been around since Cascata opened. But Neal isn’t your average club caddie. Besides having a business card, Neal is a professional mini-tour player, having recently been a regular on the Butch Harmon Las Vegas Tour.
Neal’s acumen and local knowledge come in handy on numerous occasions during the round, most notably in reading the greens — which stimp out at about 11 this day — and in directing the longer hitters in the group where precisely to aim drives over the mountainsides in order to cut off doglegs. He even proved a good fielder. When yours truly ricocheted a drive off a rock about 40 yards in front of the tee box on No. 16, Neal cut the ball off at the tee markers before it bounced back into negative-yardage territory. And he even resisted the temptation to burst into laughter.
Besides the man-made spectacles at Cascata, the bighorn sheep that wander onto the driving range give us a glimpse of some of what nature has to offer in the River Mountains above Boulder City. The males butt heads several times as they make their way across the hitting area, oblivious to the golf balls hitting nearby. We didn’t see the mountain lions and coyotes that are reportedly also part of the wildlife mix, but there are plenty of places to hide.
The course itself winds up and down through the mountains, with pronounced elevation changes from tee to green. Though target areas are relatively generous, shots hit far astray can be chalked up to the rocky surroundings on both sides of every hole. And with Neal uttering the words rattlesnakes and scorpions, it’s enough to keep ball-finding expeditions short, even though this isn’t peak season for our dangerous friends in these high-desert surroundings.
I ask Neal if anyone ever walks this course. After a little chuckle, he says that one player once wanted to, but the locals at Cascata talked him out of it. No wonder why, with the course covering roughly 440 acres (about twice the typical amount for a golf course) and including 8 1/2 miles of cart paths. Some of the distances and terrain between greens and tees would make walkers consider taking along pitons.
Suffice it to say that both literally and figuratively, Cascata is an elevating experience.
