BY GEORGE As in ST. GEORGE, which is adding to its surfeit of spectacular golf with a brilliant redesign and a showstopping farewell performance.

By Tony Dear

Jim Behnke has to be one of the most frustrating golfers you’ll ever meet. Which is to say he’s a total gentleman and wonderful company for 18 holes, but clearly exists only to reveal your shortcomings as a golfer. Behnke, you understand, is one of those maddening fellows that make the game look impossibly simple while you toil and tut your way to another deflating scorecard.

The 66-year-old retired hospital administrator shoots a four-under 68 the day we’re paired together at Entrada at Snow Canyon in St. George, Utah, and he seems only moderately satisfied. Though he certainly strikes a nice, clean ball, he doesn’t hit a single shot that makes his playing partners gasp. But nor does he hit one that puts him remotely close to trouble. He never makes a mistake, always keeps his emotions in check, and strategizes on each hole like some shaman with a direct line to the Golf Gods.

Behnke has played at Entrada since the Johnny Miller design opened in 1996 and became a full member eight years ago. He’s been the course’s unofficial ball-finder for years with a record daily haul of 1,013 lost balls—all of which he donated to Youth on Course.

This astonishing figure reveals two unconnected but undeniable aspects of life at Entrada. First, owing to inferior golf, perhaps, but more likely to an extremely difficult golf course, the members used to lose an awful lot of golf balls. And second, Jim Behnke knew where to find them all.

With an obviously high golf IQ and as an expert on Entrada’s dark spots, Behnke was the ideal man to assist David McLay-Kidd and design partner Nick Schaan on a major restoration. “Jim was invaluable,” says Kidd. “As we discussed each hole, I just asked him where he found most of the lost balls. That gave me a very good indication of what needed to happen to make that hole more playable and more enjoyable.”

Playability and enjoyment were definitely the watchwords of the $7 million project that began early in 2021 and was completed 11 months later. As General Manager Michael Rushing explains though, it was born of a much smaller plan. “Initially we were just talking about updating an aging irrigation system,” he says. “Then we began thinking, well, we might as well improve a few of the least popular holes. Before too long we were interviewing a handful of architects with a view to updating the whole course.”

Kidd won the contest and, though the budget prevented him from changing the routing, he was able to alter all 18 holes, widening and reshaping fairways, upgrading bunkers and rebuilding greens all in the name of more engaging, less penal golf. The golfer who could hit high, straight, long shots would no longer be the only player able to prosper at Entrada. The retired folks who call the place home, who swing a driver at less than 90mph, and who struggle to hit their drives either high or beyond the 220-yard mark could now clip, bunt and run their ball around the course in a respectable number, enjoy their round and even walk off the 18th green with the same ball they hit off the 1st tee—something that had been a very remote possibility before.

The biggest change probably came mid-way through the back nine where the somewhat forgettable, long Par 3 14th and tricky, short Par 4 15th had their pars swapped, the 14th becoming a really cool short 4 and the 15th a beautiful short hole. The par switch was the idea of St. George-based photographer Brian Oar who had played Entrada many times and always regarded the 14th and 15th as a disappointing missed opportunity. “I suggested the idea to David at Gamble Sands in Washington,” says Oar. “I probably wouldn’t have had the nerve to say anything but had had a few glasses of wine so went for it.”

Kidd liked the idea and though he altered Oar’s plan for the 14th slightly, he gives Oar the credit for making what has been a very popular change.

“It worked really well and turned a poor Par 3 and almost good Par 4 into a really good short 4 and great short hole,” he says. The 14th/15th is now a great lead into the lava holes for which Entrada is perhaps best-known.

Kidd is making a habit of turning once meh courses into altogether more enjoyable venues. He did it at Rolling Hills in southern California in 2018, Sand Point in Seattle in 2020 and Entrada in 2022. Though a private club open to members of both Entrada and Troon Privé (which manages the course), it is publicly accessible by way of the Inn at Entrada. Stay in one of the 40 luxurious casitas here and you too can play the Kidd-remastered layout.

You’ll soon be able to play what promises to be another world-class course in the area. Black Desert, a mile northwest of Entrada on Snow Canyon Parkway, was the last course designed by Tom Weiskopf, who lost his battle with pancreatic cancer last August, seven months before the World Golf Hall of Fame announced his induction as part of its 2024 class.

Black Desert has hosted nine-hole preview rounds since the end of 2022, but the full 18 is set to open in June. Though you can certainly tell their courses apart, Weiskopf and Kidd’s design philosophy wasn’t terribly different. Weiskopf admitted top-class professional golf wasn’t the best way to learn how to design a course that could entertain a range of golfers, but the 1973 Open champion’s designs are eminently playable, and Black Desert will be no different.

Set against southern Utah’s red rocks, its emerald fairways cut between fields of black lava, the course will be among the most visually stunning in the world. Calling it “a combination of Sedona and Kona—the best of both worlds,” Weiskopf’s associate Phil Smith says they agreed it “was one of the best raw sites we’d ever had—a unique opportunity that required all of our skills to pull off.”

Brian Jennings, a veteran of more than

40 course-builds dating back to the mid’80s, was an important part of that. Now Director of Course Construction for Reef Capital Partners—which, besides Black Desert, is also developing Tiger Woods’s next course, at the Marcella Club in Park City, Utah—Jennings says building holes in a sea of black lava certainly wasn’t easy, but the opportunity to work alongside Weiskopf was something he’ll never forget. “He worked very closely with us,” says the man known by his workmates as Gonzo.

“The time we spent with him provided a unique and valuable opportunity to learn from one of the most respected designers in the world. His passion and expertise were inspiring, and it was an honor to work with him. We concentrated on building his best course, not his last.”

Early reviews from preview play have been almost universally positive and images suggest it really is going to be something special. “I think it’s going to blow people away,” says Oar who has already photographed the course. “It really is built in the lava, and they clearly spared no expense. There are some really incredible golf holes, and I expect it to be an unbelievable experience.”

The course will be part of the 580-acre Black Desert Resort which will include a 148-room luxury hotel, real estate, a spa, retail space, event space and all the recreational options you’d expect of a development costing $820 million—with offsets from a $106 million a bond from the City of Ivins and a $153 million award from a federal-state program promoting renewable energy and efficiency.

All that’s coming in the fall of 2024, a year after Tom Weiskopf’s new course will have opened. It’s just a terrible shame he won’t get to see golfers enjoying it.

Bellingham-based CAG contributor Tony Dear writes coloradoavidgolfer.com’s Gear column, along with award-winning articles for multiple golf media outlets. For more information, golfentrada.com; blackdesertresort.com