Lake Las Vegas: Reflection Bay
Played Reflection Bay several times, many moons ago. The course was one of three within a massive residential, hotel, shopping and dining lake-front resort town. Before the entire resort filed for bankruptcy and when Cascata and Shadow were pretty much off limits to everyone, this was THE spot to play. You can find it in the Scrapbook here. It was pretty much abandoned from when it went belly up in 2009 until they brought Jack Nicklaus back to update the course and they reopened it in 2015. Its sister course the Falls wasn’t so lucky, closing permanently leaving this and the private SouthShore Country Club as the two courses within the resort. I think Southshore remained opened throughout the bankruptcy and sale but I could be wrong.
When I first came here (I think in 2000) and a couple of times again in 2002, this was a vibrant club and community. We stayed on property at the Ritz Carlton. There was a Loews and the MonteLago Village Resort. There were shops and restaurants and a casino. It was a vacation away from your Strip vacation. In fact on many other trips we had kept meaning to come back here but played other courses that were more convenient to the Strip. Then the 2008 crash. Ritz done. Reflection Bay closed. Casino shuttered.
I came back out here once in 2018 after the Westin opened in the Ritz space, the Hyatt at the Loews and while the MonteLago stayed open the entire resort was trying to claw its way back from its nearly billion dollar debt. We were looking at convention space and the area was starting to come back but still was just depressing. The casino wasn’t opened. The bars were barely hanging on. The restaurants were mostly empty. And most of the storefronts were still vacant.
Then something or should I say someone magical happened in 2020! The world’s biggest Ass Clown, Gavin Newsom. Thanks to his handling of the pandemic, the crushing impact of this and his taxes on business owners and working people, he is Nevada’s Realtor of the Year as tax-paying Californians abandon the state in droves and real estate is booming again at LLV like never before. It’s time to enjoy some fun Newsom memes.
Honestly liberal rule had made it nearly impossible for small businesses in California and then this piece of shit comes along. I want to go have a beer with Tom Wolf (our own piece of shit guv) and tell him at least he’s not Newsom.
But I digress. To the course. Honestly can’t remember a lot about it. I think Nicklaus reversed the nines in the redo. Five total holes hug the lake – seven through nine on the front and seventeen and eighteen on the back. Those five really stood out. The above photo is of the par-three eighth from the ninth tee. As a residential community there were some houses on the course but they were pretty far back and didn’t ruin the experience. The whites when we played measured almost 6,400 yards but the course only sloped to 128 so not brutal. Found the card from the 2002 round (I was probably close to an 18 index) and hit a 96 – parring the second and birdying the 12th (a par three). Conditions were good and remember really enjoying the course.
When I came back here in 2018 I wanted to play here but they had a tournament booked on the one day I could. I played Chimera which is just off property. Used to be Tuscany. Wasn’t great then from my memory and wasn’t great again in 2018 renamed but still looking mighty Tuscan. It’s pretty close though but a little further out is Dragon Ridge which was a far better option. Tried to get on SouthShore and if you stay at the Westin you may be able to do it, but I couldn’t then.
Eats-wise, there’s a little Tequila bar and an Irish pub in the little town square that were nice. I think we just did Mexican but if we did something else it didn’t stay with me. If you can get on SouthShore and try Dragon Ridge – maybe this is a nice escape if you’re always jamming the Strip and playing the casino courses. Thanks to Newsom, it’s probably a little more lively here now. I wrote up other Vegas courses throughout the site: Cascata. Shadow Creek. And Wynn.
Golf Scrapbook 