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A Vegas Oasis
Luxurious Lake Las Vegas outshines The Strip With its cobblestone palazzo, Pontevecchio bridge and evocatively named neighborhoods—Capri and Ravello, among others—Lake Las Vegas is what Italy could be if global warming ever reaches critical mass.Conceived in the late 1970s by Alps-smitten developer Ron Boeddeker as a man-made Lake Como in the desert, Lake Las Vegas resort is certainly more nurture than nature. Without a majestic snow-capped mountain setting, Boeddeker settled for a stretch of parched earth 17 miles east of The Strip. Despite its dreamed-up theme and proximity to the neon-saturated downtown area, this upscale resort is light years from Synth-City’s image as the home of gaudy glitz and has an air of intimate sophistication that The Strip has lacked since Steve Wynn demolished the Desert Inn to make way for his latest megaproject.
The descent into McCarran International Airport from the east offers aerial views of this lush, 2,600-acre oasis. Lake Las Vegas comprises three golf courses and as many hotels, all anchored around the largest privately owned lake in Nevada. Two of the courses at this GOLF MAGAZINE Silver Medal resort—Jack Nicklaus’s Reflection Bay and Tom Weiskopf’s The Falls—are open to the public, while the third, the Nicklaus-designed SouthShore Golf Club, is private. Opened in 1998, Reflection Bay ranks 36th on our most recent list of the Top 100 Courses You Can Play. Routed around arroyos, water hazards and the Hyatt Regency, it is a strategic masterpiece that demands three of its architect’s celebrated attributes: a high fade, pinpoint accuracy and on-course smarts. Reflection Bay is a course to be managed, not conquered. See for yourself when the course hosts the Wendy’s 3-Tour Challenge, broadcast on ABC December 18 and 19. Fairways here are generous and the bunkering stern, but much of the course’s bite comes around the greens. At the 528-yard fifth hole, a stream along the right encourages golfers to aim left, where par-killing bunkers await. The green is defended on the left by mini moguls; find them and you’ll face a pitch to a green that is about as slick as the stepping stones you must navigate to cross the stream and reach the putting surface.
Five holes at Reflection Bay play along the lake. The seventh, a 452-yard par 4, calls for a carry of nearly 250 yards over a gulch that cuts the fairway as decisively as a seasoned blackjack dealer. Clear the hazard and it’s a short approach to a waterfront green that gathers around a deep bunker. Place your bets. The postcard hole is the 199-yard eighth, a peninsula par 3 with breathing room to the right and watery doom to the left. But the most enjoyable hole may be the 393-yard 10th, which on the scorecard looks like the blues and greens got switched. Yes, that small green strip is the fairway, smothered by water. Watching your approach sail over all that aqua is like watching your paycheck ride a roulette wheel—it’s all or nothing.
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