Wednesday, March 31, 2010 | 2 a.m.
BY THE NUMBERS
$17,500
Once the price of first-year membership fees for SouthShore Golf Club. In a deal with Loews Las Vegas, the club is now allowing hotel guests to use the links. Lake Las Vegas and valley residents also can play.
$299
Package deal price for Loews hotel guests. Package includes the room, a round of golf, greens fees, and club and shoe rentals.
200
Number of golf members signed up since the course reopened in October under new management.
Timeline
Surrounded by multimillion-dollar mansions and such neighbors as Celine Dion, the SouthShore Golf Club has long been one of the most exclusive courses in the valley — so exclusive that it almost turned away Vice President Joe Biden in November.
Biden eventually got in as an “owner’s guest.” The club’s original members had to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars, at a minimum, to get access to the course. The first year of membership fees alone cost as much as a new car, and to be eligible for membership, you had to own a lot in the guarded, gated custom-home community. SouthShore’s roster touts the likes of pro golfer and model Natalie Gulbis.
But the walls of exclusivity are crumbling under the weight of the recession.
The club quietly signed a deal with Loews Lake Las Vegas last month allowing the hotel’s guests onto the course for the first time. It means a round of golf that used to cost $17,500 just in first-year membership fees now can be had for $299 — and that includes a hotel room, rental clubs and a glimpse of what remains of the good life at Lake Las Vegas.
The nearly 7,000-yard, lakeside course was designed by golf legend Jack Nicklaus. Golf Magazine lauded it in 1996 as one of the top 10 courses in the country.
But last year, like so many other businesses, the course fell on hard times. After it was foreclosed on in August, it was acquired by Rhode Island-based Textron Inc. The course reopened under new management and new rules in October. The greens and fairways once only open to SouthShore residents became available first to any Lake Las Vegas and eventually any Las Vegas Valley resident who was willing to pay a year’s worth of $625 monthly membership fees. The $10,000 initiation fee was waived.
Since it reopened, the club has signed up 200 golf members and 45 social members (people who use the course restaurant and other amenities), says its director of membership sales, Mark Barrett.
“Golf courses need to look at how they can do their business differently, especially private courses,” Barrett says. “We need more rounds and more revenue.”
That’s why the course signed its 18-month deal with Loews Lake Las Vegas in late February. It’s also why the SouthShore Homeowners Association, “after much discussion,” agreed to crack open the gates to its once-private course. The group approved the deal after winning some concessions regarding how golfers would access the course within the gated community and designation of certain times for resident-only play, association President Vicki Hafen Scott says.
“It’s a benefit to the community to have a healthy, vibrant golf community,” Hafen Scott says.
The course needs the golfers and Loews needs the course. Lake Las Vegas’ two public courses, The Falls and Reflection Bay, went into foreclosure and closed last year. Loews and the soon-to-close Ritz-Carlton Lake Las Vegas rely heavily on meetings and small conventions, spokeswomen for each of the properties said. And where there are meetings and business deals to be had, there are executives looking for golf courses.
“It’s definitely going to help with groups that are golf-minded, but I also expect it to help our leisure business just as much as our meeting business,” Loews spokeswoman Jennifer Duffy says.
Other private courses in town say they don’t need to partner with local hotels. A spokeswoman for Southern Highlands Golf Club said it is remaining private, and the Anthem Country Club, one of three clubs in the valley owned by its members, said it’s also doing just fine without the public guests.
Anthem Country Club, which has a $41,000 first-year membership cost, currently has about 400 golf members and 700 members who use the club for dining and social events, Paul Anderson, its general manager and chief operating officer, says.
Last year, in fact, was the club’s most profitable yet, he adds.
“People stayed home and used the club instead of going to San Diego for the weekend or taking a trip to Europe.”
Sun Archives
- Lake Las Vegas: A shining lakeside oasis loses its luster (3-1-2010)
- Population dearth doomed Casino MonteLago at Lake Las Vegas (3-1-2010)
- Casino MonteLago at Lake Las Vegas to close next month (2-16-2010)
- Ritz-Carlton Lake Las Vegas to close in May (2-8-2010)
- Current, past owners spar in Lake Las Vegas bankruptcy case (9-21-2009)
- Lake Las Vegas proposes bankruptcy plan (9-5-2009)
- Judge approves bankruptcy for Lake Las Vegas golf course (6-29-2009)
- Another golf course to close at struggling Lake Las Vegas (6-25-2009)
- Lenders seek control of Lake Las Vegas hotel (6-4-2009)
- Ritz-Carlton bought amid financial woes (3-24-2009)
- Residents of bankrupt Lake Las Vegas face uncertainty (3-23-2009)
- Lake Las Vegas can abandon golf course, judge says (1-15-2009)
- Resort golf course’s fate spurs debate (12-16-2008)
- Bridge over troubled water (5-24-2008)
- Ritz-Carlton Lake Las Vegas spa and golf resort opens (2-11-2003)
Join the Discussion:
Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.
Full comments policy