In the splendid early morning, the sun not yet fierce across the El Dorado Valley, a
coyote and a crow play tag at the upper end of a practice range. A single golfer on the
range, who has not yet hit a ball, waits to see how the game plays out. There is a
stunning solitude, a palpable privacy.
That's Cascata, the new Holy Grail for high-rolling gamblers in Las Vegas.
The Cascata golf club clings to the side of a mountain within the limits of Boulder
City, about 30 minutes from the Las Vegas Strip. The complex was built at a cost of
nearly $60 million for one reason: to attract big-time players to the casino-hotels
owned by Park Place Entertainment. If you are a guest at Caesars Palace, Bally's, Paris,
the Flamingo or the Las Vegas Hilton, and you carry around a credit line that pushes six
figures, you can play at Cascata.
Greens fees? There aren't any. Menu prices? There aren't any. Personal service? It's
there in abundance. Cascata is all about coddling the casino corporation's most
important customers, all about attracting new clientele to Park Place Entertainment's
hotels in Las Vegas. Golf and money are mutually attractive. Give your high-rolling
customers with high handicaps a golf club to call their own, and you gain an edge over
another casino.
That's what hotelier Steve Wynn did in the late 1980s when he built Shadow Creek, the
original Holy Grail. This was Wynn's private domain, a sanctuary for the Mirage hotel's
biggest gamblers and a few of Wynn's special friends. You can now buy a greens fee for
$500 at Shadow Creek. The folks at Park Place Entertainment say that won't happen at
Cascata. Just bring a large bankroll and your clubs, though clubs aren't absolutely
necessary. They will loan you a set, or even give you a set if that bankroll is big
enough.
"We were the only high-end property out here that didn't own its own golf course," says
Scott LaPorta, the executive vice president and chief financial officer of PPE. "We
would send our players to golf clubs like the TPC at Summerlin and buy their tee times.
They would get some sort of special treatment there. But they were out of our control.
We wanted a place where we could make them feel special every step of the way. We have
that in Cascata."
Cascata was built for the MGM Grand hotel, but when the merger with Mirage Resorts took
place last year, the new company needed to raise some cash. It already owned Shadow
Creek. So PPE struck a deal with MGM Mirage to buy the golf course and some property
in Atlantic City. It was a turnkey agreement, with MGM completing the course and then
handing it over to PPE. Cascata opened for play last December.
Cascata is no less an engineering triumph than Shadow Creek, which is a mirage of a
Northwest golf course planted in the desert floor. Golf course architect Rees Jones
constructed Cascata's 18 holes and a practice facility out of the side of a mountain, a
feat just a smidgen short of amazing. He found ways to route the course up and down the
finger ridges that fall off the mountain; consequently, the course sprawls across 450
acres. His construction crew made its own topsoil on site. He designed a number of water
features into the arid landscape. He ensured that the course was playable for all levels
of players because high rollers often come with high handicaps.
Cigar Aficionado was the first publication allowed inside the gates of Cascata, to view
the splendor that Jones created and to experience the personal ambience. As the
limousine delivers you to the front door of the Tuscan-style clubhouse, members of the
golf staff and the food and beverage staff greet you. When you step inside the
clubhouse, you guess immediately how the club got its name. A 418-foot waterfall, which
begins on the mountain in back of the practice range, flows through the center of the
clubhouse. It's a spectacular introduction to a spectacular day.
Director of golf Dave Johnson, a veteran of nearly 25 years at the Desert Inn, will tell
you all about the course. Food and beverage director Greg Poplewko may inquire about
your food needs for the day, like lunch on the course, dinner in the clubhouse, snacks
and drinks. He'll catalogue your food tastes in his computer database for your next
visit. A visit to the locker room will find your name etched in pewter and affixed to
your locker. Your golf cart will leave from an enclosed area of the clubhouse's lower
level. You will hear the waterfall, the cascada streaming through the
clubhouse.
Jones knew this had to be a special course for a special purpose. "I think this project
is one of a kind," he says. "We had to find holes without being able to move a lot of
earth. We had to crush the rock to make the soil. I think we came up with a very
accommodating golf course that has a lot of beauty. It took a year and a half to build.
I don't know if you could have built it anywhere else, because of Las Vegas and the
resources they have there."
Virtually every hole sits between rock ridges, isolated from the other holes. Unlike the
desert courses of Arizona, grass is abundant. Few holes require a forced carry off the
tee, allowing the higher handicappers to bunt it along if they have to. Two par 3s stand
out, the 157-yard seventh and the 165-yard 12th. Both greens are notched into the side
of large rock outcroppings; the seventh's is blasted from the side of the mountain. The
rock walls provide both backdrop and backstop. Errant shots hit long may rebound back on
the green.
There are big par 4s, some as long as 489 yards, but mercifully they play downhill. The
longest hole is the 17th, where the good or brave player can try to fly his tee shot
over an arm of the mountain that defines the dogleg, cutting off 100 yards. There are
multiple sets of tees on every hole, the course playing as short as 5,591 yards or as
long as 7,137.
"This was really a feel job, something you had to do in the field, not on paper," says
Jones, who made 25 visits during construction. "It's not like you could move soil around
and do it again if you didn't like it. We moved some rock, but you definitely didn't
want to do it again."
To live up to its name, Cascata offers water features on many holes, usually in the form
of streams. The water tends not to be intimidating, though it is the main feature of the
par-5 finishing hole, with a stream running along the fairway and a lake in front of the
green. It takes
13 pumping stations to carry the water around the course, and four 200-horsepower pumps
are needed to operate the main waterfall that runs through the clubhouse. Besides
sustaining an abundance of grass, the irrigation system, with 70,000 drip nozzles,
provides life to the many varieties of flora that are planted along the ridges. Jones
calls the revegetation of the area "simply amazing."
The course looks out over the El Dorado Valley and from the higher elevations you can
see forever, or at least to a mountain across the valley floor. Along with the coyote
and the crow, bighorn sheep and mountain lions are known to roam the area. The land was
even home to a hermit woman, who was discovered during construction to be living in a
small cave that now sits on the right side of the 16th fairway.
Providing personal service is the ultimate goal of the Cascata staff. There are seldom
more than 12 players a day, often just a handful. Each player or group is sent out with
caddies, many of them aspiring professionals who can help a player with his swing as
well as identify the proper club and read breaks in the greens. Cascata professional
Brian Hawthorne often accompanies guests. "I actually get to play more here than other
places I've been," says Hawthorne. "It's a pleasure to be meeting and playing with so
many different people from around the world."
Food and beverage director Poplewko deals with special requests for all types of
cuisines. Food products are shipped to Cascata by truck from the Paris hotel. Want
caviar or foie gras? No problem. Jellied eels? They'll work on it. Special trays are
available for lunches eaten on your golf cart and for cigar service in the dining room.
A cigar lounge, which adjoins the dining area, contains a decent-sized humidor stocked
with high-end labels. All of this is free, of course.
"The high-end players are used to being comped, so when they go to Cascata they don't
spend money except for tips," says LaPorta. "If they want something in the pro shop,
chances are we'll buy it for them. The pro shop is the only place where there are goods
for sale, but you have to be at the course to get any of our logo material. We don't
sell it in our hotels."
Invariably there will be comparisons to Shadow Creek, but the only things the courses
have in common are 18 holes, water features and personal service. Shadow Creek was an
enormous earth-moving task, dug down into the desert floor so that the desert disappears
the moment you drive inside the gate. With thousands of trees and views of the distant
mountains, Shadow Creek could be in Oregon or Washington, minus the 110-degree
temperatures in the summer.
Cascata is more true to its desert surroundings, if you can call 100-plus acres of grass
and waterfalls true to a desert. But there has been no attempt to mask its surroundings,
and every attempt to glory in them. Not a single tree comes into play. "I think the
people who play it are struck by the site," says Jones. "It's very special that you get
to
do something like this. It was a tremendous challenge, but I believe it turned out well
and is doing what it was intended to do."
The hope is that the $60 million spent on Cascata will attract even more money to
the gambling tables of Park Place Entertainment. For the very high rollers, Cascata is
one leg
of a very expensive golf outing for about 30 players. After playing at Cascata, they are
flown by luxury private jet to the Monterey Peninsula of California, where they play
Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill. The company has also held a tournament for 144 players
at Cascata, which has a large tournament room in the clubhouse for serving gala dinners
and handing out the prizes.
Park Place went so far as to hand-deliver special invitations to play Cascata to
customers and potential customers in the Far East. "It's been making some pretty good
impressions on the Far East customers," says LaPorta. "We see people coming back and
telling us they did so because of the course. Everybody I take out there -- investors,
casino analysts -- wants to go back. Based on the increased level of play we've had in our
casinos, it has justified our investment in the course."
Cascata has no plans to sell tee times, nor any intentions of building housing around
the course. The entire site is 800 acres, and there are unconfirmed reports that PPE
eventually will build a second course
farther down the mountain that will be open on a daily fee basis. But the long-term
plans are to guard the privacy of Cascata and its exclusive group of players.
And to make sure that the coyote and the crow have a place to play tag.
The Shadow Knows
MGM's golf course was the first high-roller enclave in Las Vegas
In the supercharged competitive world of
Las Vegas hotels, everyone is looking for a hook. Every hotel executive is looking to
attract the biggest players, the six-figure guys, the seven-figure whales. It could be a
private jet ride into town, an extravagant suite with a butler or a personal gaming
room. No matter what the bankroll, the odds are still with the house, and the house
wants you to know how appreciative it is.
Steve Wynn sought different hooks when he founded the Mirage hotel. He put a volcano out
front to entertain the teeming masses.
And he had another idea, a highly successful, unique idea. He spent the better part of
$40 million to build one of the most talked about, and least played, golf courses in
America. He created Shadow Creek.
Opened in November of 1989, Shadow Creek was Wynn's private club, his sanctuary and his
hook. He knew that high rollers, particularly from the Far East, found golf compelling.
So he set about building, with golf course architect Tom Fazio, a mirage in the middle
of
the desert and a gem that would sparkle around the stratosphere of the gambling world.
The course felt like a tree-lined, green paradise nestled somewhere in the Northwest,
only it was in Las Vegas. It was the ultimate casino amenity, and one that has proved
tremendously successful, even though Shadow Creek isn't as exclusive as it used to be
and Steve Wynn doesn't control it anymore.
"It's still one of the greatest marketing tools ever," says Bill McBeath, the president
of the Mirage. "I played it the first day it was open. I played there every weekend with
our high-end customers. And they kept coming back time after time, hundreds of them,
because they found Shadow Creek so special."
Shadow Creek remains special entering the twenty-first century. It hasn't lost its
mystique; it has no less allure. It's still a terrific place to play. And now you can
buy a tee time, for $500. That's a result of the merger between the Mirage hotels and
the MGM Grand company, yielding MGM Mirage. Wynn broke the exclusivity barrier in the
'90s when he offered customers a deal: rent a higher-end suite at the hotel, and get a
round at Shadow Creek.
Now you are eligible, by staying at any MGM Mirage hotel, to pay the 500 bucks for a tee
time, Sunday through Thursday. But McBeath says the course will never be packed, there
won't be a hundred people vying for a locker in the clubhouse or a club sandwich in the
dining room. "The course had been running to about 20 percent of capacity," says
McBeath. "We are not intending to increase that above 50 percent of capacity, and that's
only on certain days. To put any more people out there would denigrate the
experience."
Shadow Creek still is a great draw to players from the Far East. "The golf course had
its greatest impact on the international market," says McBeath. "Its instant acceptance
by the golf community helped to accelerate our ability to dominate the international
market. We command up to 50 percent of it and up to 90 percent of the baccarat
market."
Shadow Creek still has a lot to do with MGM Mirage's ability to attract players with
ultra-deep pockets. "During the holiday periods -- Christmas, New Year's, Chinese New
Year's -- it's impossible to get on the course unless you are a six-figure player," says
McBeath.
The Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino also saw golf as a major draw, and had architect Rees
Jones design the Rio Secco Golf Club in the hills south of the city. The Rio sends its
big-time players to Rio Secco, though the course may not be the principal attraction.
What the Rio has that other hotel golf courses don't is Butch Harmon, the coach of Tiger
Woods.
"In addition to his knowledge and his expertise, Butch is truly a nice guy and a real
character," says Bill Hunt, the Rio's executive director of casino marketing. "It
doesn't hurt that he's Tiger Woods's coach, but Butch's personality holds its own."
When Harmon isn't busy with his teaching academy at Rio Secco, the hotel books him for
private lessons and private rounds with valuable customers. "We have to block times way
in advance with him because of his commitments to Tiger and other players, and his golf
school," said McBeath. "But we have guys who once they meet him just can't wait to go
back." Those guys need to have a six-figure credit line or close to it.
You can buy a tee time at Rio Secco for as little as $200 if you're a guest at Rio or
Harrah's; $250 if you're a guest at another hotel. But of course the big players don't
pay a dime. The course probably loses money against the bottom line, but Hunt sees it as
a valuable commodity. "As a casino amenity, it's absolutely a great thing to have," he
says.
The Venetian hotel doesn't have its own course, but, like the Rio, its offers a special
instructor to satisfy its best customers. "It's important to have some kind of golf
amenity for both the domestic and Asian side of the business," says Brian Parrish, the
vice president of marketing for the Venetian. "We have John Redmond, who is Paul
Azinger's coach, who plays with our customers and helps build relationships with the
hotel. He gives real solid, quality instruction and keeps a record of every player so he
can pick up where they left off the last time he saw them."
The Venetian maintains a close relationship with the Walters Group golf courses in the
area, including the new Bali Hai course. For the players with six-figure credit lines,
the Venetian arranges three-day golf trips to Pebble Beach or clubs in the Los Angeles
area. "Golf is something you need to round out your product offering," says Parrish.
"You may lose customers if you can't offer them something special with golf."
Golf is a big hook in Las Vegas, helping hotels get their slice of the pie. But if you
expect a freebie at Shadow Creek, or Park Place Entertainment's new Cascata, or a
three-day golf trip to Pebble Beach, a high five-figure credit line might get you
something, but six figures is pretty much a lock.
Seven figures? "Would you like the course emptied, sir?
Jeff Williams covers golf for Newsday.
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