How would you like to own a golf course?

Sounds like fun. Then it hits you; the tab comes. You've got to pay to water and groom it with all those fancy mowers and trimmers and workers that crawl over every blade of grass and sand trap. You must hire a staff to operate it, find players to play it and somehow meet budget in an area that's witnessed nine other courses crop up in the last competitive decade.

Meet Provo businessman Doug Horne, a member of Riverside Country Club and owner of TalonsCove at Saratoga Springs, west of Lehi, just off Redwood Road next to Utah Lake.

Horne is doing something unique — doing a high-wire act. He's out there on his own, the wind in his face, taking all the risks, hoping for the rewards which may not come until this community of 10,000 approaches its projected 100,000 population.

Horne has no safety net, no city, county or state department of recreation to fall back on. He's not tethered to a bottomless well of bailout money.

His real estate partners around the land have gone their own way. Horne is one of five original businessmen who scratched wells and water out of pastureland that led to creation of the city of Saratoga Springs. The real estate folks went their way and Horne got the golf course with another guy.

One day, that guy called Horne and said he needed to gather some money to pay some of the bills. Horne scraped some money together and delivered it.

The guy filed for bankruptcy the next day, leaving Horne the course.

Good luck.

Horne, bless his birdie-loving heart, never walked away from the picturesque Gene Bates layout. Not his style.

Those who know Horne say he's too competitive and honest to let go. He's battling Thanksgiving Point, which has a corner on local corporate outings.

He's battling The Point with Fox Hollow, which has poured millions into a new clubhouse, carts and irrigation, and Orem's Sleepy Ridge, a busy layout that's just weeks away from opening a monster clubhouse. All want events, weddings and players. All want to win over the golf dollar.

Horne's not blinking. "I'll put what we've got up against anybody."

Horne's a guy you'd trust with your diamonds, if you had any. His honesty is off the meter. He's so nice, if he hits a couple of bad shots in a row, you just hope he swears for normalcy sake, but he says "shucks" and "oh, golly."

"That's pretty much Doug," says Riverside head pro Robert McArthur. "He's competitive and honest, just a good guy and a very good businessman. He likes to do things right."

Horne's latest strategy is to put TalonsCove in the hands of a longtime golfing pal, somebody he trusts, a guy with a proven business track record.