Connect with us

Blog

The Match: 7 Things About Wynn Golf Club

Avatar photo

Published

on

THE MATCH: 7 THINGS ABOUT WYNN GOLF CLUB

Let’s get ready to rumble! Another heavyweight golf bout is on its way to Las Vegas, but this time around, the venue won’t be Shadow Creek. When brawny rivals Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau go head-to-head the day after Thanksgiving in the fifth edition of The Match, they’ll do so at Wynn Golf Club, behind the casino hotel of the same name. Like Shadow Creek, which hosted the first iteration of The Match, a $9-million extravaganza starring Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, the Wynn is an impeccably manicured Tom Fazio design that commands a hefty price tag. But unlike Shadow, it hasn’t been the backdrop for any recent high-profile televised events. If you’re thinking of playing the course — or just watching the event — here are seven fun facts to stuff into your trivia bank.

1. It’s a strip tease

Though it doesn’t cost as much as Shadow Creek, which recently bumped its peak-season greens fees to $1,000, the Wynn still charges plenty: $600 a round. It does so with convenience as a calling card. As the lone resort course on the Strip, it’s the only spot in town where you can roll out of your penthouse suite, ride the elevator to the ground floor and stroll directly to the first tee.

2. It was going to be a water palace

Nearly four years ago, when then-CEO Steve Wynn closed the course, blueprints were in place to transform the site into Wynn Paradise Park, a lavish aquatic playland. But Wynn wound up resigning amid sexual misconduct allegations (he no longer has any involvement with the property), and the new brass determined that a pristine golf course made more sense than what amounted to a giant swimming pool.

ADVERTISEMENT

3. It’s a Fazio, redux

Often, when a golf course gets reworked, a new architect is called upon. In this case, though, the ownership turned to the original designer, Tom Fazio, who carried out the job with his son, Logan.

4. It has a Rat Pack past

The Strip is not St. Andrews. No one would call it hallowed ground for golf. And yet there’s history here. Long before this property became the Wynn, it was home to the Desert Inn, a resort and casino with a course of the same name. The PGA Tour, Senior Tour and LPGA Tour all competed regularly on its fairways. So did Frankie, Dino and the boys.

5. The caddies are sticks

The Wynn’s loopers aren’t just pack mules who can work a laser. The caddie corps includes former collegiate golfers, mini-tour players and assorted others whom you wouldn’t want to face in a money game. In short, you can count on savvy insights, to say nothing of some very Vegas-sounding counsel, such as: “Take this one off the Barry Manilow sign.”

6. It’s a mix of old and new

Though the rebuilt course has new greens and fairways and eight entirely new holes, it covers mostly the same footprint as its predecessor, and it preserves elements from its past, including more than 120 mature trees that date to the days of the Desert Inn. A dramatic waterfall still flows behind the 18th green, just as it did on the original Wynn course, though the hole, once a par-4, now plays as a par-3. Though Bryson and Brooks won’t be playing all 18 (theirs will be a 12-hole match, on a yet-to-be specified routing), you can bet they’ll be playing the closer. It’s just too much of a Vegas spectacle to omit.

7. Aces are wild

The odds are slim (roughly 12,500 to 1) but the payoff is fat. Anyone who makes a hole-in-one on the par-3 18th at the Wynn walks off with a cash prize of $10,000 from the resort. That rule does not apply to Brooks and Bryson, who will getting paid far more for their time in Vegas, whether they make an ace or not.

This article originally appeared on Golf.com.

Blog

Meet The Canadian Open Qualifier Tied To ClickIt Golf!

“This week was incredible,” he said. “A dream come true.”

Avatar photo

Published

on

Josh Goldenberg doesn’t plan to quit his day job. But he had a great time dabbling in his old career.

ADVERTISEMENT

He gave up on pro golf, then qualified for his first PGA Tour event.

Read the full story here
https://golf.com/news/josh-goldenberg-rbc-canadian-open/?amp=1

Continue Reading

Blog

Bets & Babes: Betting on Birdies

Avatar photo

Published

on

In this latest episode of Bets and Babes join me and my special guest Robert from the World Series of Golf as we tee up a whole new way to think about betting on the green.

ADVERTISEMENT

We break down golf betting basics, share hilarious stories and talk about how to bet in a way that might resonate with us ladies.

Whether you’re a total newbie or just curious how to make golf Sundays more exciting, this episode delivers fun, flirty, and smart tips to get you in the game. 🎧⛳💸

Click below to listen to the entire episode and leave your comments and suggestions for future episodes.

Continue Reading

Blog

The Bogey Man’s Guide to Accidental Course Exploration: Or, How I Found My Ball (Eventually) in the Rough of Life

Avatar photo

Published

on

Ah, golf. The gentle game of precision, patience, and occasionally, profound personal humiliation. You know, the kind that makes you question all your life choices, particularly the one where you decided to spend your Saturday morning chasing a tiny white ball around 18 acres of manicured torture.

Boo here, reporting live from the depths of a particularly thorny patch of “rough” that I’m fairly certain wasn’t on the course map. My mission? To recount a tale of a golf shot so spectacularly off-target, it became less about breaking par and more about breaking new ground. Literally.

It was a glorious Tuesday. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and my swing felt… well, it felt like something. I was on the par-4 7th, a hole notorious for its deceptive dogleg and a bunker that swallows balls faster than a hungry teenager devours pizza. My plan was simple: a nice, controlled fade, landing gently just short of the green. A textbook approach, really.

What actually happened was less “textbook” and more “abstract expressionism.” My driver, bless its misguided heart, decided that “fade” was merely a suggestion, and “controlled” was a concept best left to professional pilots. The ball, a brand-new, gleaming Titleist Pro V1 (because, you know, optimism), launched with the trajectory of a startled pheasant and veered sharply right. So sharply, in fact, it cleared the cart path, hopped over the maintenance shed, and disappeared into what I can only describe as a dense, untamed jungle previously known as “the woods bordering the 7th fairway.”

Now, a lesser golfer, a more sensible golfer, might have declared it lost, taken a drop, and moved on with their dignity mostly intact. But I, dear readers, am Mr. Bogey Man. And the Bogey Man doesn’t abandon his children, especially when they cost $5 a pop.

ADVERTISEMENT

So, armed with a 7-iron (optimism again, clearly), a profound sense of misplaced determination, and a faint hope that perhaps a deer had picked it up and was using it as a chew toy, I plunged into the abyss.

The first five minutes were a blur of tangled vines, unseen roots, and the distinct feeling that I was being watched by small, judgmental woodland creatures. My pristine golf shoes quickly became mud-caked relics. My carefully tucked-in shirt became a casualty of low-hanging branches. I swear, I heard a squirrel snicker.

Then, a glimmer! A flash of white amidst the green. “Aha!” I cried, startling a family of robins. I pushed through a particularly stubborn bush, only to find… a discarded plastic water bottle. My heart sank faster than my last putt from 3 feet.

I pressed on, muttering to myself about the unfairness of golf, the existential dread of lost balls, and whether it was too late to take up competitive napping. Just as I was about to give up and declare the ball a permanent resident of the arboreal underworld, I saw it. Nestled perfectly at the base of an ancient oak, gleaming defiantly, was my Pro V1.

The triumph! The sheer, unadulterated joy! It was like finding the Holy Grail, if the Holy Grail was spherical and prone to slicing. I carefully extracted it, brushed off a few leaves, and held it aloft.

Then I looked around. I had no idea where I was. The fairway was a distant, hazy memory. The cart path? A myth. I was utterly, gloriously lost.

It took another fifteen minutes of bushwhacking, a brief but intense wrestling match with a particularly aggressive thistle, and the accidental discovery of what I’m pretty sure was a very old, very moldy sandwich, but I eventually stumbled back onto the course. My playing partners, who had long since finished the hole and were contemplating sending out a search party (or at least ordering another round of drinks), looked at me with a mixture of pity and amusement.

My score on the 7th? Let’s just say it involved a number that would make a mathematician weep. But the story? The adventure? The sheer ridiculousness of it all? Priceless.

So, the next time your ball decides to take an unscheduled tour of the local flora and fauna, don’t despair. Embrace it. See it as an opportunity for accidental exploration. You might not break 80, but you’ll definitely have a story. And isn’t that what golf is really about? (Besides the frustration, the lost balls, and the occasional snickering squirrel, of course.)

Until next time, keep those swings (mostly) in bounds, and remember: even a bogey can be an adventure.

Boo

Continue Reading

Trending

Click here to get all the latest golf news

Close