The Wynn Las Vegas golf course has been saved, and it will be restored with a new routing including new holes from original architect Tom Fazio.
The golf course, on the land of the former Desert Inn before its purchase by Steve Wynn for an estimated $270 million in 2000, had been closed at the tail end of 2017 to make room for the second phase of a project Wynn had envisioned would bring millions in business to his Wynn and Encore resorts. The first phase involved building a 400,000-square-foot convention center, with the second phase leading to a man-made lagoon for guests to enjoy, including water sports and a nightly float parade.
Wynn is no longer the company's CEO, the result of sexual harassment and misconduct allegations made against him in 2018. The new leadership chose to abandon the second phase of the project, which would have involved demolishing the course, building the lagoon and adding another tower of hotel rooms to go along the edge of the lagoon.
“From April 2016 to today, we always struggled with Phase 2 of Paradise Park,” said new CEO Matt Maddox in an investor call to discuss Wynn Resorts' third-quarter results, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “How are we going to make a room tower in a town with a lot of rooms pencil along with a lagoon? We weren’t really interested in building a large public swimming pool for the Las Vegas Strip. So we just decided, ‘Let’s go with Phase 1.’ We know the convention center is going to work.”
Maddox added the company had lost some $10 million to $15 million in business because golfers sought out other Las Vegas properties for their trips. Rounds at the Wynn Golf Course typically ran in the $500 range.
The new convention center, however, does infringe on the original golf course space. So, the company engaged Fazio to design some new holes to work around the convention center space.
“We actually went back and re-engaged Tom Fazio, who was the original designer of our golf course to come in and take a look at the couple holes that were disrupted by this 400,000-square-foot convention center and see if we can design a new 18-hole golf course connected to Wynn and Encore and have that back in back in action before our convention center opens," Maddox said.
The convention center is slated to open in Fall 2019, and the new golf course should open around then as well.
