Best Golf Courses in Las Vegas: There’s a lot more to Sin City than the strip and slot machines

The Best Golf Courses in Las Vegas, USA

Travelling to Sin City and planning a break from the bright lights, slot machines and magic acts? These are the best golf courses in Las Vegas for you to get your fix during your time in Nevada.

Las Vegas is known to have some of the best golf courses in the USA, but the chances of anyone traveling from the UK to Las Vegas purely for its golf courses are smaller than the likelihood of your making money at Keno for which casino.org says the house usually has as much as a 40% edge. That’s certainly not to say Sin City’s golf offerings aren’t much good – there are several excellent courses within an hour of the Strip – just that there’s an awful lot more to do besides swinging a 5-iron and holing a few putts.

Las Vegas is located in southern Nevada’s Mojave Desert and was founded in 1905. Gambling was legalized here in 1931 but it wasn’t until 1961 that golf arrived with Bert Stamp’s design of the Stardust Country Club which is now Las Vegas National, and located about four miles east of Caeser’s Palace. Over 50 courses have since been built in and around the city and, while some possibly aren’t worth crossing the street for, a handful are worth crossing the Atlantic Ocean and 2,500 miles of the United States to play.

The big-money Vegas golf courses you’ve heard of, such as Las Vegas Country Club which was host to 2024’s LIV Golf Las Vegas, are fantasy playgrounds where stretch limos deposit high-rollers and casino whales who aren’t here to ponder the finer points of golf course architecture but rather to enjoy the lavish amenities and sensational course conditions. Fans of quaint, natural courses with small carbon footprints and threadbare maintenance budgets will possibly gag at the sight of some of the city’s more extravagant layouts, while hedonists, sybarites and bon-vivants will think they’ve died and gone to heaven.

The 10 Best Golf Courses in Las Vegas

1. Shadow Creek

Course details: 7,560 yards, par 72
Green fee: $1,250 (must be staying at one of the 13 MGM properties in Las Vegas).
Website: mgmresorts.com
Telephone: 702-399-7111

For years it seems, Shadow Creek has been locked in a battle with Pebble Beach for the title of ‘highest green fee in the USA’. The Las Vegas course is currently out in front following a renovation in summer 2023 that added $250 to its already rather steep rate but, of course, renovation costs don’t really factor into the budget realities of a place like Shadow Creek.

The money men behind this over-the-top, Shangri-la don’t sit at desks wondering how much extra each visitor needs to pay in order to cover the expense of making a few cosmetic changes. This is all about publicity and what people are willing to shell out for a singular experience that is every bit as Las Vegas as its showgirls, themed casinos, and neon lights.

Now 35 years old, the course was developed by casino-owner Steve Wynn who hired Tom Fazio to turn a lifeless rectangle of desert into a verdant oasis with trees, lakes, flowers and grass so green and lustrous you’d think you were standing in an AI animation. Not for everybody, but a dream for some.

2. Cascata

Course details: 7,151yards, par 72
Green fee: $675 (a significant discount is available when booking Cascata and Rio Secco – also owned by VICI Properties – together)
Website: golfcascata.com
Telephone: 702-294-2005

While not quite as mesmerizing a transformation of the landscape as Shadow Creek perhaps, construction of the Ress Jones-designed Cascata (Italian for ‘waterfall’) was still an extraordinary accomplishment. The course traverses some steep, rocky, rubble-strewn canyons about 25 miles southeast of the Strip, but still has the lush, almost hallucinogenic look of its high-priced competitor. It opened in 2000 and was once open only to high-rollers who dropped large sums in MGM casinos, but since being purchased by current owner, VICI Properties, it has been open to the public, albeit with a hefty green fee.

Assuming you can drag yourself out of the remarkable, 37,000sqft, Tuscan-style clubhouse, you’ll climb for much of the front nine while taking in incredible views of the desert floor, 3,200ft below. The back nine moves downhill with numerous streams and other water features in play and fairways bordered by ironwood, date palm and willow trees. Cascata cost $70m to build, and it shows.

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3. Southern Highlands Golf Club

Course details: 7,135 yards, par 71
Green fee: Private
Website: southernhighlandsgolfclub.com
Telephone: 702-263-1000

Like Cascata, Southern Highlands was inspired by, and built to rival, Shadow Creek, the major difference being Southern Highlands is anchored by an extremely affluent neighbourhood of houses some of which will set you back $20m. Officially, the course was co-designed by Robert Trent Jones and his son Robert Trent Jones Jr. though, in truth, the old man had long been retired and it was Junior that authored the visually-stunning, immaculately-maintained holes some of which possess some significant changes in elevation.

As you’d expect of so lavish a golf course where appearance is everything, the man-made waterfalls, flower-beds and huge, elaborately-shaped bunkers are numerous, and the clubhouse is another enormous Tuscan affair, this one reaching a whopping 42,000sqft. With members ranging from casino moguls to PGA Tour stars, Southern Highlands is a prestigious address and a highly-valued tee-time.

4. Wynn Golf Club

Course details: 6,722 yards, par 70
Green fee: $750
Website: wynnlasvegas.com
Telephone: 702-770-4653

Built on the site of the old Desert Inn course which had opened in 1952, Wynn Golf Club opened in 2005 after architect Tom Fazio shifted huge amounts of desert soil to create undulations and elevation changes that the original course never had. It closed in 2017 when owner, Steve Wynn, built the Wynn Convention Centre which encroached on the 17th hole and had plans to redevelop the extremely valuable land. But he eventually decided to rehire Fazio, and his son Logan, to revamp the course which re-opened in 2019.

‘The Match’ a made-for-television event featuring sporting and TV celebrities has been played here a couple of times, and it appeared in the movie ‘The Squeeze’ in which a young, pro-golf hopeful named Augie (played by Jeremy Sumpter) ends up playing big-money games for a long-time gambler called Riverboat (played by Chistopher Macdonald). A few hundred yards shorter than most courses on this list because of the limited acreage on which it sits, Wynn Golf Club has all the extravagant water features, capacious bunkers and manicured surfaces Wynn and Fazio created at Shadow Creek.

5. Summit Club

Course details: 7,417 yards, par 72
Green fee: Private
Website: summitclubnv.com
Telephone: 709-70-2150

Another big-budget design from Tom Fazio, the Summit Club was the venue for the PGA Tour’s CJ Cup in 2021 when Rory McIlroy won by a stroke from Collin Morikawa after completing 72 holes in 25-under-par. The Summit Club opened in 2017 and was created by Discovery Land Co. a Scottsdale-based developer of luxury communities with a portfolio of over 35 properties around the world including Taymouth Castle in Scotland, Discovery Dunes in Dubai, and Costaterra Golf and Ocean Club in Portugal.

The Summit Club is located at the western extent of the city, about 15 miles from Caeser’s Palace and, thanks to its elevation enjoys incredible views east towards the Strip. The design is typical of Fazio with a lot of artifice and features built as much for their visual appeal as their architectural characteristics, the result being a course where your camera will be as essential as your putter.

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6. SouthShore

Course details: 6,903 yards, par 71
Green fee: Private
Website: southshoreccllv.com
Telephone: 702-856-8400

Although the proposal first surfaced back in the mid-1960s, it wasn’t until 1991 that 320-acre Lake Las Vegas, 20 miles east of the city, was filled with water from nearby Lake Mead (the largest reservoir in the US by capacity). At the time, the plan was for a $3.8 billion resort development with six golf courses, five major hotels, and 3,000 homes to eventually border the lake but, as of now, there are just two courses, two major hotel resorts – a Hilton and a Westin – and, at the last count, not quite 2,500 homes.

The first of the golf courses was the Jack Nicklaus-designed SouthShore, another of the area’s very private, grandiose clubs that was actually the Golden Bear’s first Signature design in the state of Nevada. Southshore is part of a housing estate, but these are not insignificant homes and avoid being a menace by being set well back from the golf corridors.

There is over 300ft in elevation changes throughout the course which has hosted the Wendy’s 3-Tour Challenge and where you’re likely to encounter a big-horn sheep or two in the course of a round. The visual treats – palm trees, boulders, water features, wildflowers, bulkheads, ornate bunkers and, of course, the lake, are virtually omnipresent and what golf in Las Vegas is all about.

7. Rio Secco

Course details: 7,215 yards, par 72
Green fee: $675
Website: golfriosecco.com
Telephone: 702-777-2400

Though a fantastic course in its own right, Rio Secco is probably better-known as the home of Butch Harmon’s School of Golf which the ace instructor established in 1997, the year the course opened. Today’s Golfer columnist Iona Stephen recently spent a day with him at his academy.

A 25-minute drive south-east of downtown Las Vegas with the requisite views of the city a course with this sort of green fee demands, Rio Secco was designed by Rees Jones and, like Cascata, is part of VICI Golf’s list of properties. ‘Secco’ means ‘dry’ in Portuguese and, indeed, the dry river washes cut across holes and run down their sides in numerous spots, adding a layer of strategy to another of Las Vegas’s opulent, superbly-conditioned courses.

If, because budget isn’t an issue, you somehow manage to snag a tee-time at the private clubs, and you play at all of the city’s high-end courses, it’s possible the waterfalls and baroque bunkering will begin to lose their appeal after a while, but if Rio Secco happens to be the first course on your Las Vegas itinerary you’ll likely spend half the round, or more, shaking your head in disbelief at the sheer exorbitance and immoderacy of it all. Jones renovated the course in 2017 to make it more playable for a wider range of golfers.

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8. Reflection Bay

Course details: 7,261 yards, par 72
Green fee: $140
Website: reflectionbaygolf.com
Telephone: 702-740-4653

Two years after SouthShore opened Nicklaus was back at Lake Las Vegas, this time on the opposite shoreline to build a public-access course for the development group. With its closing stretch of holes along the water’s edge, Reflection Bay was an instant success and quickly vaulted into numerous publications’ ‘Top 100 Courses You Can Play’ rankings. Its first ten years were extremely successful but then the economic crisis of 2007-2009 happened and business slowed to a trickle.

Like the resort’s other public course, The Falls, designed by Tom Weiskopf, Reflection Bay couldn’t sustain the hit closed in 2008. In 2014, hedge fund manager John Paulson purchased both courses each of which had obviously fallen into a terrible state of disrepair. While The Falls remained closed, Reflection Bay was resurrected and, with the water back on plus a number of design alterations by Nicklaus (removing bunkers to ease maintenance costs, but also bunkers reshaped to improve playability), it was quickly back in shape. In 2023 it closed again, but this time to have its greens resurfaced.

The original bentgrass greens required an awful lot of water to keep alive (the course used close to 400 million gallons a year) so were replaced with Paspalum a significantly hardier grass that’s tolerant of heat, drought, and salinity.

9. Las Vegas Paiute (Wolf)

Course details: 7,604 yards, par 72
Green fee: $289
Website: lvpaiutegolf.com
Telephone: 702-395-1702

In the early part of this century, building environmentally-sensitive golf courses became a popular, viable and lucrative way for Native American tribes to utilize their land, and a number of genuinely excellent courses resulted. The Las Vegas Paiute Tribe, a sovereign nation since 1934, certainly made the most of its 3,850-acre reservation, 25 miles northwest of the city, where it hired Pete Dye to build three courses on the desolate, barren, and fairly bleak property.

Giving Pete Dye free rein on a few hundred acres was an inspired decision as the designer of TPC Sawgrass, Whistling Straits, the Stadium Course at PGA West, and numerous other dramatic, eye-catching courses built 54 amazing holes with each of the layouts earning critical acclaim.

The last to be built, and by far the toughest, was the Wolf, or Kwetoo-unuv in the Paiute’s Nuwuvi language. It stretches to 7,604 yards and features many Dye calling cards – moguls, pot bunkers, greens with plenty of pitch and short-grass surrounds and, of course, an island green.

10. Coyote Springs

Course details: 7,471 yards, par 72
Green fee: $143
Website: coyotesprings.com
Telephone: 725-210-5400

In 1988, the Bureau of Land Management, an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering U.S. federal land, transferred around 40,000 acres an hour north of Las Vegas, to the Aerojet Corporation in exchange for 5,000 acres of the Florida Everglades that required Federal protection. Aerojet originally intended to build a rocket manufacturing and testing site in its new Nevada home but ended up selling the land to developers whose $30 billion plan was to cover 65 square miles of desert with casinos, schools, shopping malls, and 160,000 houses.

A quick visit to Google Earth will show you that, over 20 years after the current owners took over, not a single house has been built, and there are aren’t any school or shops or…well, anything. That’s not quite true actually because, since 2008, a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course has covered about 400 of the property’s 48,000 acres. And what a course it is. Huge playing corridors and large, contoured greens give the golfer plenty of room to swing away and improve their Greens in Regulation stat, but nine large water features and dozens more huge bunkers might give them pause.

Best Golf Courses in Las Vegas – Honorable Mentions

Las Vegas Paiute (Snow Mountain) – The resort’s first course has a lot of water and several excellent risk/reward holes – (public).

Wolf Creek – You may have seen photographs of this arcade game-looking course designed by Dennis and John Rider and opened in 2000. Located in Mesquite, 85 miles northeast of Las Vegas – (public).

Las Vegas Paiute (Sun Mountain) – Apparently the resort’s staff rate Sun Mountain as their favourite of its three courses because of the holes’ natural framing and far-reaching desert views – (public).

Bali Hai – It’s the huge sandy expanses, and playing in the shadow of the massive Mandalay Bay Resort and across the road from Harry Reid International Airport that people love – (public).

Bear’s Best – Jack Nicklaus sought inspiration from previous designs when designing this course a 20-minute drive west of the Strip – (public).

About the author

Tony Dear – Contributing Writer

An Englishman who has lived in the U.S. for longer than he cares to admit (okay, since 2001), Tony played on the University of Liverpool golf team before working as an assistant pro and then choosing to write about the game instead of play it.

Despite calling himself a golfer for 39 years and completing something like 2,000 rounds in 35 countries, the quest for his first ace continues and he has even considered retiring from the game when one of his cursed (his word) tee shots finally drops.

You can follow Tony on X or read more of his thoughts on golf on Substack.