The first fairway of the Wynn Golf Club sits beneath the Wynn hotel and is framed by mature trees ... [+]
When the golf course at the Wynn Las Vegas was shut down – seemingly for good — at the end of 2017, the plan at the time was to bulldoze it and proceed with a proposed $3 billion development project.
Now, almost two years later, the Wynn Golf Club is back and so is high-end golf on the Las Vegas Strip. The course has been overhauled, with eight completely new holes and 10 others that were revamped by original designer Tom Fazio and his son, Logan.
With it comes one of the highest playing fees in all of golf: a $550 peak season rate. The price drops to between $300 and $375 during the summer months. The cost is certainly a far cry from the average public golf fee of $35, but it has to be considered within the context of its environment.
Golf at the new and improved Wynn is about the overall experience, just like the shows, gambling and fine dining that visitors seek when coming to Las Vegas.
The immaculately-conditioned course is a complete escape from the glitz of the Strip, a world removed despite its proximity to the surrounding hustle and bustle. The posh layout sits in the resort’s private backyard, overlooked by the Wynn and Encore towers, and features tranquil streams and 7,000 mature trees – many of which date to the 1950’s when the land was home to the historic Desert Inn Golf Club. There’s a feeling of being tucked amid the pines of North Carolina.
A look at the immaculate conditioning at the Wynn, which has the look and feel in many places of ... [+]
While the greens fee is substantial, many visitors to the neighboring casinos will lose far more than that in a half-hour or less at the blackjack, poker and roulette tables. As far as the cost of higher-end entertainment options go in Las Vegas, $100 to $125 an hour (for the 4- to 5-hour round) is a relatively fair trade-off, particularly for such a memorable golf experience.
Golfers playing the Wynn enter the pro shop from the hotel itself after walking past stores, restaurants and gaming tables. The locker room is small, but opulent, and the golf staff directs you out a door to an outside gathering area for the carts and caddies. It’s a short cart ride to the practice area, which is small in size given the property’s limited confines; from a series of mats, players hit warm-up balls into a tall net about 10 yards away. The entire practice area is artificial turf and surrounded by sturdy nets that are several stories high.
The practice area for the Wynn Golf Club
A pristine practice putting green sits adjacent to the first hole, which plays to an impossibly-green fairway framed by trees and gentle hills, with other Vegas resorts visible not far off in the distance.
While the footprint of the course has been tightened to 129 total acres to make room for new convention space next to the hotel, the layout doesn’t feel cramped. In fact, there’s very much of an isolated, individual feel to the holes early in the round. The course was shortened by about 300 yards overall and is now a par-70 layout that plays anywhere from 4,810 yards to 6,722 yards.
There are six par-3 holes at the revamped Wynn Golf Club
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. Some, like the massive (and massively-fun) boomerang-shaped green at the par-4 14th hole, are far bigger than others. Be warned: they’re quick, and all have a perfectly-true roll.
While there are significant changes throughout the course, the 15th through 18th holes required particularly extensive work to make room for the hotel’s expansion and 400,000 square feet of new convention space.
Indeed, while the first 14 holes are somewhat reminiscent of North Carolina – albeit with overlooking hotel towers visible throughout — the final four make it abundantly clear you’re in Vegas. There’s a monorail that runs along the short par-4 15th hole. A new pavilion for special events is just steps from the tee box of the long par-4 16th hole, while the new convention space serves as the backdrop for the 17th hole that doglegs to the right to a green protected by a small duck-filled pond.
The 18th hole is the exclamation point of the new Wynn golf experience. Now a par-3 instead of a par-4 finisher, the hole stretches to almost 250 yards from the back tees. It’s also an intimidating shot of around 200 yards from the resort tees that most guests will play to a green protected by water on the left side and a deep bunker in front. The most striking visual is a 35-foot-tall, 100-foot wide waterfall directly behind the green, making for an unforgettable finish.
It would be especially memorable with a hole-in-one, which results in a payout of up to $20,000 depending on which tees you’re playing.
The par-3 18th hole at the Wynn Golf Club is a memorable, and tough, finisher.
At the end of the day, the price to play the new Wynn Golf Club isn’t cheap. But neither is the special piece of Vegas Strip upon which the reworked course sits.
Still sits.
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