Sand Hollow will debut as southern Utah's newest golf destination
Sand Hollow will feature 27 holes of golf, more than 1,700 residences, vacation villas, a spa and fitness center, and pools.
One of many views at site of new Hurricane/St.George mega resort
By PGA.com news services
---- The newest golf destination in southern Utah is rising amid red rock mountain views at the Sand Hollow Resort. Formal groundbreaking for the project is scheduled to take place later this year.
Golf at Sand Hollow Resort--Master Plan
Located 15 minutes from St. George in the state's southwestern region, one of the country's fastest growing second-home markets, Sand Hollow Resort will feature 27 holes of golf at Sand Hollow Golf Club, more than 1,700 private residences, vacation villas, a spa and fitness center, and pools and water features.
Sand Hollow Resort Real Estate Site Plan
Water Park Amenities
Hot tubs,slides and a lazy river
A water park, spanning 15 acres, will be created around resort's natural landscape and will include a modified lazy river, stair-stepping through a series of pools stretching from the top of the park through the villas to the resort entrance.
Sand Hollow Resort -- The Spa
You wake up early on a bright sunny day. You step outside and take a deep breath of clear air as you absorb the magnificent red rock surroundings. It is that moment of exhilaration that is the motivation for the experience we're creating for the Spa at Sand Hollow Resort. Our Spa will offer a seamless indoor-outdoor experience that will include spectacular views and luxurious facilities. Add pools of water, gracious attendents, and intimate settings for massages, body wraps, and signature treatments and our environment for pampering and soothing is complete.
Sand Hollow Golf Club will be a "sister course" to the highly acclaimed Thanksgiving Point, as both golf courses will managed by Vanguard Golf Management Group. Thanksgiving Point is best known as the site of the Nokia Champions Challenge, hosted by Johnny Miller, a two-day golf tournament featuring prominent PGA and LPGA Tour players.
The Sand Hollow courses will be designed by John Fought, who will create the 18-hole Championship Course and a separate nine-hole walking course. The layouts will incorporate ridgeline, canyon and elevation variations to create a challenging, yet memorable, golf experience.
The resort sits in close proximity to Sand Hollow State Park and Zion National Park. Access to Sand Hollow is via direct flights to St. George from Los Angeles or Salt Lake City, or a 90-minute drive from McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas.
Equestrian and RV Center
Sand Hollow State Park -- With over 20,000 acres of lake, sand dunes, trails and campsites, the neighboring state park will be a vacationer's dream.
>Center Control Bldg. -- Management offices and restrooms are housed here.
>Horse Barns & Corrals -- Horse care and boarding facilities are located here.
>Sand Hollow Resort -- The resort boundary encompasses a hillside that descends to the Virgin River.
>Trail System -- An extensive trail system winds down the canyon wall and along the river bottom.
>OHV Access -- Off-highway vehicles are stored on this site to provide easy access to the nearby OHV trails.
>Separation -- The horse corrals and trails are separated from the RV storage and OHV trails. Horseback riders and ATVers each seek different recreational experiences.
>The Access Point -- The equestrian and RV center becomes a key access point for horseback riding and recreational OHV use for the entire recreational area, including other resorts.
>Virgin River Trails -- The trails along the river create a scenic and fun venue for hikers, bikers, runners and equestrians.
>Easy Evening Rides -- With the convenient boarding facilities next to trails, an evening ride was never quicker or easier.
>Horse Trails -- Quickly get saddled and get on a trail. No carting the horses to a distant location, it's all here
Sand Hollow is latest Hurricane golf dream
By Dick Harmon
Deseret Morning News
Maybe this gateway to Zions really is on the verge of exploding.
Folks around here are use to 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, 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.
Golf Magazine:
Sand Hollow Golf Resort—Living and Golfing in a Southern Utah Paradise
By Chance Cook
“We’re trying to make certain we have the best northern course and the best southern course in the state, and we’re pretty excited about it,” said Vanguard Golf Management Director of Golf, Mark Whetzel. “The plan is to create synergy between the new Sand Hollow Golf Course and Thanksgiving Point Golf Course, both of which we manage.” Being the new kid in the neighborhood is always a bit hard especially when the project is about to steal other’s proverbial thunder—which is what the Sand Hollow Resort and Golf venture in Southern Utah may very well accomplish. Rumors have been flying about what will happen near the shores of Sand Hollow Reservoir just outside Saint George off Interstate I-15 and subsequently State Route 9, and here are some of the facts coming to light about this exciting development.
“The owners of the land contracted with us about two years ago, and we’ve actually been working on it to the point we are today—about two months away from groundbreaking,” Whetzel said. Vanguard Golf Management will manage this impressive venture that is bound to make more than a ripple. Think of it more as a tidal wave.
“I believe we have a great designer and that serious golfers are likely to be excited about playing on a course designed by John Fought,” Whetzel proudly states with a smile. “John in one of the top designers in the country right now, and probably his most famous project is the designing of Pumpkin Ridge in Oregon. He’s also designed The Gallery in Arizona which will be hosting the Accenture Match Play next year with fifty-four of the top players in the world.”
Sand Hollow Golf Course will feature twenty-seven holes of championship golf. Having a top designer on board definitely generates its own news, but having one who understands Utah, its players and the culture is simply the proverbial icing on the cake.
“John Fought’s Utah ties include playing for Brigham Young University back in the 70’s,” Wetzel said. “He won the 1977 U.S. Amateur Championship and also won two times on the PGA Tour.”
Not Just Another Golf Course?
Hardly. There’s much more to the Sand Hollow Resort than just golf.
“We want it to be a recreational paradise, meaning that you can live there or stay there,” continued Wetzel. “Not only can you play golf, but you can enjoy the spa/fitness facilities. Plus, the reservoir is just a hop, skip and a jump away with four-wheeling, boating and fishing. It’s going to be a phenomenal piece of property that is just going to blow everyone away in the state of Utah.”
Vacation villas, pools with water features, tennis courts, an 8,000 to 10,000 square foot Native American museum and over 1,800 private residences will spring up around the impressive and majestic course. Sand Hollow Resort will become one of Utah’s very few authentic golf resorts, one setting itself apart by offering a wide array of other recreational activities.
“The Homestead near Midway, UT, is about the only other resort that has accommodations and golf, but we have all the other amenities,” said Whetzel. “The plan right now is to break ground in the fall of this year, and actually do construction and start grow-in next summer of 2007 with a grand opening projected for spring of 2008.”
Public or Private?
Once completed, who will be welcome to enjoy this amazing place?
“It will be a public course,” said Whetzel, “and accessible to everybody. We’ll make sure our green fees are the same as the local courses nearby, such as Coral Canyon, and not too expensive but just right.”
According to Whetzel, guests will be able to experience a true link style course.
“A sneak peak for the golf course is definitely going to be a link style,” he said. “There are a lot of definitions for link style, but the true definition comes from Europe where the course is the land linked to the sea. In Sand Hollow, there is an area between the sea and the community of all sand and no trees where the golf course will be located—that is really what a true link style is.” It will have unimpeded views of the surrounding vistas that make this area so unique.
“That is what we’re going for here,” adds Whetzel. “It is surrounded by a lot of red rock and red sand, not a lot of trees—in fact, there won’t be any trees. It will be an upscale, resort link style with desert-scaping, very hard edges and extremely well manicured golf course.”
Without a doubt, the design of the course alone will set itself apart from the other fine courses located in and around St. George. “It will definitely be a resort golf course that is very player friendly, aesthetically magnificent with spectacular views,” said Whetzel. “We’ll have the capability to toughen it up if we want to host a regular tournament event but, right now, we want to make it accessible and very playable for the average golfer.”
Vanguard sees this venture as complementing what they’ve created in Lehi with Thanksgiving Point Golf Course. “Their peak season is our off season, and visa versa,” Wetzel said, “so we feel pretty fortunate that the two facilities will not compete against each other but will help each other.”
Past Success Supports New Resort Management
Whetzel understands that their past success with Thanksgiving Point was the reason they were chosen to manage Sand Hollow. “And our management philosophy is not going to change. They hired us because they like our service, our attitude and the way that we run and operate tournaments.”
Whetzel admits that Vanguard is a bit tight lipped about the specifics—perhaps that’s why the public wants to know more. But, he assures us, more information will be forthcoming.
“Right now we’re working hard on how we’re going to communicate who we are to the public,” he said. “Our soft launch will be at Thanksgiving Point at the Champions Challenge in about a month, and that’s really all we want to give out right now. Until we have our brand positioning statement finalized and know exactly what else we are going to do, that sums up who we are and what we’re all about at this moment.”
Even without the juicy details, anyone familiar with the project knows what an exciting recreational opportunity is on its way to fruition on the shores of Sand Hollow Reservoir.
“We are going away from just the golf course and encompassing a whole resort lifestyle. It’s similar to what you see in Arizona, Southern California and Las Vegas, and we’re bringing a little bit of that here to southern Utah,” Whetzel concludes with another smile.
All in due time.