A look at the 18th hole at the Wynn Golf Club before it's 2017 closure.
When the Wynn Golf Club closed at the end of 2017, Brian Hawthorne said he figured it was a safe bet that high-end golf along the Las Vegas Strip was no more. Hawthorne, Wynn’s Executive Director of Golf Operations, couldn’t be happier about a losing wager.
The Wynn Golf Club is now set to re-open in October with a new look, part of an overhaul that helped it escape being bulldozed as part of a proposed $3 billion development project.
“Eight holes that were closer to the hotel itself have been completely re-imagined, reinvented, reworked – pick your word,” says Hawthorne, who originally arrived at the Wynn Golf Club in 2005, six months after the Tom Fazio design opened. Hawthorne left in 2016, just before the facility closed, but now is back, like the course itself.
As of July 13, golfers with a room reservation at Wynn or Encore Las Vegas can reserve tee times 90 days in advance. Non-resort guests will be able to secure tee times 30 days in advance starting in September. What golfers will find is a course that looks different than its previous incarnation, particularly the routing changes that Fazio and his son, Logan, incorporated to make room for a new convention area.
“We’re sharing our space with our friends from our sales and conventions team,” said Hawthorne. “As a business, we knew this was an area that we had a huge amount of opportunity in, but we also realized that the golf course played a really important role in the profile of our property as well.”
An exterior view of the Wynn and Encore Resorts in Las Vegas.
On an earnings call in November, Wynn Resorts CEO Matt Maddox said not only the did the resort lose 16,000 rounds of golf when the course closed, but it also lost out on an estimated $10 million to $15 million worth of domestic casino business because people coming in for golf trips decided to go elsewhere.
The changes will be evident from the start, as the first hole goes in the opposite direction as it did previously. Four of the first five holes were altered, including the third hole, which has been changed from a par 4 to a par 5. Now a 6,722-yard, par-70 layout, the course has been shortened by about 300 yards.
Every tee box has been reworked and all 18 greens have been redesigned, including expanding each green complex by an average of about 300 square feet. Trees were moved to improve the health of several greens and the club adopted a new strain of bentgrass to create the best resiliency for the unique Southern Nevada microclimate. The 15th through 18th holes have also been changed significantly.
The Wynn’s 35-foot tall, 100-foot wide waterfall is still there, sitting dramatically behind the 18th green. In one of the most significant changes, however, the 18th hole is now a long par 3 instead of a par-4 finisher. The hole can stretch almost 250 yards from the back tees and will still be an intimidating shot of about 200 yards from the resort tees (6,272 yards) that most guests will play.
It’s a fittingly risky finish for Las Vegas, with water protecting the left side of the green, bunkers in front and back, the waterfall behind and, further off to the left, 4,700 hotel rooms looking down on the tee.
“It’s pretty spectacular,” Hawthorne said. “Think of what kind of stories will be taken home by our guests about that last swing. That’s what service and hospitality is about — making memories and making people happy.”
Brian Hawthorne, Wynn's Executive Director of Golf Operations, is helping oversee the re-opening of ... [+]
With a $550 peak season greens fee ($300 to $375 during the summer), the price to play the Wynn Golf Club isn’t cheap. But it also has to be put in context of its environment. Whether it’s shows, fine dining or gambling, just imagine how much guests might spend over the course of four or five hours on the Las Vegas Strip.
“It’s not just a golf course, it’s an experience,” Hawthorne says.
And come October, that experience will be back. The Wynn Golf Club joins a very select fraternity of golf courses that were given a stay of execution after the valuable land on which they sit had been earmarked for development. In Vegas parlance, that was a long shot for sure.
“It’s so unique to be running a golf course in an environment like this,” says Hawthorne. “I still pinch myself every time I drive down Las Vegas Boulevard and turn into this magical, five-star compound of limitless elements. And I get to oversee the entire backyard, essentially, and have it mirror up to the same standards and expectations of our fine-dining restaurants or five-star tower suites. There are not many places like this.”
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