Wynn Magazine - Las Vegas
Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/39920
Patio at The Country Club—A New American Steakhouse, overlooking the 18th hole E 68 WYNN very two years, renowned golf course architect Tom Fazio stages a charity event known as The Fazio Cup. Fifty foursomes from Fazio-designed private clubs around the world converge to compete on the links and share a weekend of camaraderie. With some 200 courses to his credit, including 15 on the latest Golf Digest list of America's 100 Greatest Courses, Fazio doesn't lack for eager hosts who'd like to showcase their fairways. It speaks to how highly Fazio regards the Wynn Golf Cub, his 2005 collaboration with Steve Wynn, that he chose it as the site for his most recent Fazio Cup in 2010. "The idea was to have it at the two courses that I designed with Steve," Fazio says. "So one day we played at Shadow Creek [their much-praised 1989 course nearby]. And one day we played at Wynn." At six years old, the Wynn Golf Club is a veritable babe in the woods among golf courses. But Fazio couldn't wait to show off this precocious youngster, which sits on the site of the former Desert Inn Golf Club. "The reaction was very gratifying," Fazio says. "People were shocked how beautiful and spectacular it is, especially the peo- ple who played the old Desert Inn course." Says Wynn director of golf Brian Hawthorne: "When you've got Tom Fazio, the designer who oversaw the renovations at Augusta, wanting to hold his own tournament here, that's pretty special." He is referring of course to Augusta National Golf Club, in Georgia, America's most revered course and home of The Masters. Consider the Wynn Golf Club the end result of a golfing version of Extreme Makeover. Nearly all traces of the Desert Inn course are gone, save for some 1,200 trees that were retained, some placed in a nursery and then replanted after Fazio and Wynn moved 800,000 cubic yards of earth to sculpt the new course. "It's a very dramatic place," says Fazio. "And very lush. Obviously, no expense was spared with the landscaping budget. It gave an instant maturity to the course." From the moment you hit off the first tee—with its striking 40-foot elevation change from the first tee box to the first green—to the time you sink your final putt on the 18th green framed by a waterfall tower- ing nearly four stories high, there's a pinch-me-I'm-dreaming quality to a round at the Wynn Golf Club. The GPS locator on your smartphone will tell you you're on the Las Vegas Strip, but your inner golf compass will feel like you've taken a PHOTOGRAPH BY BARBARA KRAFT