Robert Cupp, Golf World's first "Golf Course Architect of the Year," designed Silverstone's 27 superb holes, and they offer everything players can ask for: tough but fair challenges; beautiful contouring; enchanting variety in hole lengths, distances and directions; and generous fairways that give everyone a solid chance to both have fun and score.

All three nines feature rye grass fairways and roughs and bentgrass greens, while Cupp's design is reflected in the names of the three nines: Valley, Desert and Mountain (in ascending order of difficulty).

The Valley may rate as the "easiest," but don't be fooled. No. 1 is a 631-yard, par 5. The second hole is a 162-yard, par 3 over water to a small green. The 406-yard, par-4 ninth is a great closer; the tee shot must carry a pond, and the green sits half out on a lake.

Desert offers medium (the 367-yard second) to long (the 426-yard fourth) par-4 holes with generous landing areas and fairly open greens. The par 3's measure 201 and 211 yards, but there's plenty of safe landing area. The first hole is a dogleg-right, 535-yard par 5. Desert encroaches the corner, opposite a caddy corner bunker, and the fairway tapers as it turns. A deep bunker sits in the middle of the fairway 50 yards from the green, and another sits on the same line greenside. A simple hole, it is wonderfully designed.

Mountain features a broad variety in its five par 4's, two par 3's and two great par 5's, including the longest Par 5 in Nevada. No. 3 is a dogleg left playing 653 yards -- slightly downhill -- to a green well guarded by a battery of bunkers right and a large pond left. The ninth measures 616 yards, with water running all the way down the left side from tee to green, while the fairway slopes left. Players can see it to their right as they drive to the 34,000-square-foot clubhouse, which rivals any in the valley for sheer elegance and beautiful mountain views, especially of Sheepherder's Mountain to the east and Mount Charleston to the west. Among other amenities, golf carts feature graphic distance-finding systems with precise 3-D diagrams that chart exact yardage to each flagstick, green edge and hazard.

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