Maybe this dusty, sandy, gateway to Zions really is on the verge of exploding.
Folks around here have heard all kinds of talk of more exotic golf courses, condos, big residential developments, parks and highways for years. But this time, on the heels of burgeoning growth in St. George, perhaps the fuse is finally lit.
City officials predict 60,000 people and six new golf courses will dot the landscape the next 20 years.
A few days ago, at a ground-breaking for Sand Hollow Resort, a development adjacent to Sand Hollow State Park and BLM sand dunes, you got the feeling earth would really move this time. Actually, it did.
About five years ago, I attended similar ceremonies not too far from this spot. The occasion was a press event for Outlaw Ridge, a proposed golf course somehow linked to the names of Johnny Miller and Steve Young. They did a great marketing plan because whenever you talk to people of a new golf course in Hurricane, the name Outlaw Ridge surfaces.
Outlaw Ridge remains somebody's dream.
Said Thomas Seneca, president of Sand Hollow Resort, "The difference between this and Outlaw Ridge is that this is actually going to be built."
Tom Hirschi, Hurricane mayor, is a believer. He's watched myriad groups come and go, and now he's seen a partnership forged by the Washington County Water Conservancy District, the state's institutional trust lands, the BLM, Hurricane City, Dixie regional power and even realignment of the proposed four-lane Southern Corridor highway in recent months, all to get Sand Hollow up and running.
Hirschi is a southern Utah mayor right out of central casting, a good ol' boy.
"Who'da thunk it?" Hirschi asked a group of a hundred gathered for ceremonies this past week.
"I can remember back in high school, going out chasing jack rabbits out here and you couldn't give this land away, even if all you had to do is pay back taxes. Now look at this," said Hirschi.
What he referred to is the proposed 27-hole golf course designed by former BYU All-American John Fought, who is fast becoming one of the country's most popular course designers.
Fought's course will wind its way around 900 acres of a resort that will include a water park, condos, houses, a hotel, a horse trail, tennis facility — all a stone's throw from Utah's mini Lake Powell — Sand Hollow State Park, one of the only places in Utah I know of where you can pull a boat, a camping trailer and four-wheelers used in attacking sand dunes right to the water's edge.
Fought, decked out in his construction garb, said the piece of property that lines the cliffs of the Virgin River and 35,000 acres of BLM land is one of the most spectacular properties he's seen. "I'm tickled to death to work on this," he said.
It's Fought's handiwork at the South Course at Gallery Golf Club near Tucson that attracted the PGA's marquee WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship. His redesign of Pine Needles in North Carolina will host the 2007 U.S. Women's Open Championship.
Folks at Sand Hollow Resort, property owners like William Wilkey, Larry Belliston and developer Greg Jewkes set out to get the best course designer they could. Once Bellison, who's played all over the world, saw Fought's courses, he said, "We had to have him."
Fought will build an 18-hole championship course that he believes will rival any of his work. There will be a nine-hole walking course designed after St. Andrews in Scotland, complete with a Road Hole.
An agreement with the BLM for use of the land guarantees the golf course will be public forever. The course will be managed by Vanguard, headed by CEO Mark Whetzel of KSL-TV golf tip fame, director of golf at Thanksgiving Point.
Fought worked with Bob Cupp in designs at Oregon's Pumpkin Ridge (Best New Course Design by Golf Digest, 1995) and Cross Water in Sun River, Ore., site of the 2005 NCAA championships and numerous MWC tournaments and NCAA qualifying regionals.
Forrest Fezler, who works with Fought, is a 26-year PGA Tour veteran who finished second to Hale Irwin in the 1974 U.S. Open at Winged Foot, and he paused for a minute during his construction duties at Fought's southern Utah design.
"This property is spectacular," Fezler said. "It will be the kind of course where you will play a hole, be overwhelmed at what you see and can't wait to get to the next hole, just to see what's up next, again and again."
Felzer said he's not letting anyone but him build the par-3 No. 15 on the back nine that overlooks the Virgin River, hundreds of feet below, where lies an old pioneer cotton mill and a pecan orchard. It's a tee shot that faces beautiful rock outcroppings 35 feet below to the green. "It will be as good a hole as Cypress Point's No. 16," Felzer said.
Fought explained the rock formations, the typography and setting in this area will compare favorably to "anything in the western part of the United States."
The attraction is obvious. That's why Hirschi and his high school buddies escaped here in the early 60s, long after these grounds were a gathering place for American Indians thousands of years ago.
Six golf courses in Hurricane?
Jack rabbits, beware. Hurricane is halfway there.
Coral Canyon and Sky Mountain already exist. Fought hopes to plant grass at Sand Hollow this spring and open in 2007.
E-mail: dharmon@desnews.com