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Show ItoT WE Jli YI iF. SEaiON jDattjj&ilrraU) FRIDAY, JANUARY 11. EDITOR Doug Fox 2008 dfoxheraldextra.com 344-254- REGIONAL TRAVEL i f " f f :, V t ' f 1 t fir RON A distinctive, rugged terrain has helped Wolf Creek Golf Club inMesquReytgain a national reputation since COBBSt. Louis it opened in 2000. Fair way to play not too far away Ron Cobb ST. Mesquite Primer LOUIS "im Longlas, a Los Angeles-areres ident who repairs MRI machines for a living, was having a cold beverage at Wolf Creek Golf Club this fall and extolling the virtues of Mesquite as a golf destination. "Las Vegas got to be too big and too expensive and too crazy," he said. "Here, you look out at night and it's quiet and the stars are out, and you don't hear any traffic." In two sentences, Longlas came close to summing up what makes Mesquite appealing for a growing number of visitors. Situated 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas, the town of about 1,800 offers Vegas-styl- e amenities quality golf, a desert climate, but at mountain scenery and gambling a lower price and a more relaxed, congestion-free pace. Mesquite has six golf courses and seven hotels four of which are casino hotels and two spas. It is growing, but far from overgrown. On the north side of Interstate 15, which cuts through the heart of Mesquite, bulldozers crawl around the vast stretches of desert just beyond the edge of town. More condos and retirement housing are on the way. Another golf course is coming in. The Eureka Hotel & Casino is a expanding. Also expanding is Mesquite's profile among getaway-minde- d golfers. Since 1997, it has been host to the REMAX World Long Drive Championship. This fall, Mesquite has been the site of the Golf Channel's reality show, "Big Break." Word of mouth has spread not only about Mesquite in general but about its crown jewel Wolf Creek. The course, rated No. 25 on Golf Digest's list of America's best public golf courses, winds through . an otherworldly series of pale, dirt based visit to Mesquite can be confusing, so here is some help in getting facts straight. I Oasis Golf Club and the Oasis Hotel & Casino are separate entities, situated on different sides of A first-tim- e I CasaBlanca Casino Resort Spa and the CasaBlanca Golf Club are & both owned by Black Gaming. The golf course is a few blocks south of the resort. I Falcon Ridge Golf Club and Falcon Ridge Hotel both sit on Falcon Ridge and are across the street from each other, but they are separate entities. I Palms Golf Club is considered a Mesquite course, but it actually is in Arizona, abutting the Nevada-Arizon- Jf dunes, creating something akin to a lunar landscape. At $ 195 in peak season, Wolf Creek is Mesquite's priciest but most tempting treat. With numerous elevated tees including one said to be 1 1 stories high plus forced carries and tight landing areas, the course demands a lot but delivers a memorable experience. "I tell golf groups you've got to play Wolf Creek," said Rick Morris, a Eureka Hotel group golf salesman. Among those who agree is Matt Weiss, who leads a group of golfers from the Rotary Club of St. Louis to Mesquite every See MESQUITE, D2 Mar!. 1 II ! CasaBlanca is one of four casino resorts in Mesquite, Nev. LOS ANGELES Andy Edelstein NEWSDAY Yes, it really will be 10 years since "Seinfeld" left the air and "Sex and the City" came on. Yes, it really will be 30 years since "Grease" was the word for the first time and the Bee Gees ruled the universe. And yes, we guarantee that you'll say, "it's really been that long?" at least once when you check out our list of notable anniversaries we'll be observing in 2008: pop-cultu- 50th (1958) . D2 . ; lew I hi Paul Brownfield 3: "Great Balls of Fire" Goodness, gracious, has it been a half century since Jerry Lee f T Katherine Heigl 'outspeaks' her mind anniversaries HALLMARKS, '.V a '08 pop culture See r border. -- I Feb. r Interstate 15. 4 SPENCER WEINEHLos Angeles Times Katherine Heigl stars in the romantic comedy "27 Dresses." TIMES HOLLYWOOD "Oh, man, I'm tired," Katherine Heigl said. She laughed. It was 9 a.m. on a recent Saturday morning and Heigl was wearing a red Oscar De La Renta dress, black shawl over the shoulders. Her hair was blown out, face fully made up. This week very much promised to be busy and all about her. She was getting married in a few days to singer Josh Kelley a destination wedding on her property in Utah. She was still deflecting comments she made in the January issue of Vanity Fair. And she had her first big starring role in a movie to promote. For now, Heigl was sitting under a heat lamp outside at the Four Seasons Hotel, smoking and drinking a pot of coffee with Splenda before heading back upstairs to her "holding suite" before a day's worth of promotion for her new movie, the romantic comedy "27 Dresses." "I'm not a workaholic," she insisted. "I'm not. I'm the laziest ., person I know." ,. It was hard to believe this, coming from someone in De La Renta at 9 in the morning. Still, this confession is in keeping with Heigl's growing reputation as being unusually frank, her comments coming in somewhere between Dorothy Parker-toug" h and diva-spoile- "Outspoken," people call her, although it could also just be said that she speaks. Jane Fonda in Vietnam was outspoken; Heigl in Hollywood, calling the character she played in "Knocked Up" a shrew, is merely being forthright. "The press or the media has decided that I'm outspoken, and I guess that's my angle or something?" she asks. "I have been this way for the last five to seven years when I started saying, 'You know, screw it, I'm not going to pussyfoot around issues anymore.' I kind of say what I think. And if I feel passionately about something I will be honest about it, and I don't think there's any- thing wrong with that." Heigl also just might be the next big romantic-comedheroine, joining the conga line of Julia Roberts, Reese Witherspoon, Drew Barrymore actresses in whom men see a sex object and women see themselves. "She's beautiful, but not in a cold way," said Elizabeth Gabler, president of Fox 2000, which is releasing "27 Dresses," a film that e will test Heigl's draw. "You feel like you could be work-Se- e y box-offic- HEIGL, D2 3 |
