Links to the past

In the Royal Links Golf Club, Billy Walters may have the most controversial golf course in Southern Nevada.

It certainly is the Valley's most unique.

Featuring exact replicas of 18 of the most famous holes from British Open courses, Royal Links stands as Walters' tribute to the origins and history of the game.

They're all there, the most notable of the holes from storied Opens past, including the famous "Road Hole" at St. Andrews (complete with a quarter-mile-long stone wall that players must carry off the tee); the devilish "Postage Stamp" of Royal Troon; the 14th hole at St. Andrews and its notorious "Hell Bunker"; and another offering from St. Andrews, the deceptive par-4 12th hole with its five hidden fairway pot bunkers.

Walters said he first got the idea for building such a course while he was playing in an amateur tournament at St. Andrews in Scotland.

"I was looking back down the shoreline of St. Andrews," Walters recalled. "I can't describe to you the feeling I got, but I promised myself if I was ever given the opportunity and I had the resources ... I wanted to build something (like this) as a tribute to the game.

"The people in America who love this game, and there are millions and millions of them, and if they've never visited the Old Country and got that feel or experienced what it is over there, they really don't know what it's about."

Flash forward about a dozen years and Walters strikes a deal with the City of Las Vegas to develop a golf course in the southeastern most part of the Valley, behind Sam's Town hotel-casino and Walters' Stallion Mountain Country Club.

But midway through the project, Walters said he realized he could not make a profit with the type of course he wanted to build, offering the same rate to locals ($53 a round) as he does at his Desert Pines Golf Club.

Pining for profit"When I did Desert Pines, I believed at the time that there was a huge demand for golf in Las Vegas where local residents would pay $50 to $55 for a good, quality golf course," Walters said. "They'll fill your golf courses up on Saturday and Sunday but Monday through Friday, we sit there at Desert Pines and we're half empty nine times out of ten.

"I got right in the middle of this project and I realized we had made a mistake. All this clamor you hear about golf in Las Vegas being underserved ... it's not a clamor about there not being enough golf, the clamor is about the affordability of golf; people are looking for cheaper golf."

But not all people, according to Walters. He commissioned Golf Digest magazine to survey the members of the top 100 private golf clubs in the U.S. and asked them the following question:

"If you were coming to Las Vegas and you could play Shadow Creek ... and it was going to cost you between $250 and $300, or you could play this mystery golf course, which was made up of 18 of the signature holes from the British Isles, and the golf course conditions and the level of customer service was parallel to Shadow Creek's, which would you play and why?"

The results, according to Walters, were stunning. Ninety-two percent of those surveyed responded that they would rather play the "mystery golf course" than Shadow Creek.

"These people were members of (the top country clubs) ... and Shadow Creek is no big deal to them," Walters said. "They all belong to and play golf courses as good or better than Shadow Creek. This mystery golf course, because of the uniqueness of it, they never get to play these kinds of golf courses; they only see them in the British Open or the Ryder Cup.

"That was the confirmation that I needed to go forward and make this kind of investment."

Walters proceeded to buy out the 50-year lease he had with the city and then purchased the 169-acre parcel of land. Instead of $53 greens fees for locals, Royal Links charges all golfers $225 Mondays through Thursdays and $250 Fridays through Sundays.

In the tradition of the game's roots, each group must use one of the course's forecaddies -- at an additional $12.50 per player.

But Walters insists his course is a good value.

Price club"Our prices are expensive and they're going to get more expensive," Walters said matter-of-factly. "Royal Links is not for everybody. But I believe with all of my being, that for someone who is looking for a real unique golf experience, for what you get for what you pay, it is the most incredible value in golf anywhere in the world.

"There is not another golf experience like this in the world. You can go to the Old Country, but they don't have a golf course over there like this. They've got a golf course with two or three of (these holes), but they don't have one with 18 of them."

And make no mistake about it, these holes are not simply re-creations of their counterparts across the pond, they are dead-on replicas, with one notable exception. Unlike their often patchy and yellow European counterparts, the fairways at Royal Links are a lush emerald green with nary a blemish.

Walters and his team of architects, project managers and builders spent several weeks on the British Isles, taking detailed measurements of each of the holes.

"We spared no expense in re-creating these holes," Walters said. "These holes are identical -- we'll have more than just a 'feel' here. The people who are going to come and play this facility -- you're not going to fool these kinds of customers."

Walters' attention to detail at Royal Links extends beyond the immaculately manicured Bermuda fairways, sod-wall pot bunkers and bent-grass greens.

The 12,200-square-foot clubhouse is modeled after a Scottish castle and is decorated throughout with museum-quality golf memorabilia. A 100-year-old English storefront was imported to serve as the entrance to the pro shop, and the restaurant/bar is modeled after a British pub.

Walters spent in excess of $200,000 to construct the stone wall that weaves through the replica of the Road Hole, then treated it with acetone to give it an aged look.

An authentic, red English phone booth stands guard over the putting green, which can be accessed by a replica of the famous Slocumb Bridge from St. Andrews' 18th hole.

Everybody's talkin'Although Royal Links Golf Club did not officially open to the public until last Saturday, the course already is attracting its share of national attention; Golf Magazine named Royal Links as one of the top 10 new courses in America in its March issue.

Walters also said his course has been nominated to host the Palmer Cup -- an amateur version of the Ryder Cup -- and he has heard from the PGA Tour about the possibility of hosting a tour event at Royal Links.

"If you think about it, it makes sense," Walters said of American touring pros playing his course. "If you were a tour professional and you come to Las Vegas and you're going to play just a typical golf course or you have a chance (to play a course) that represented the holes from the British Open or the Ryder Cup, this is great practice for the American tour professionals."

Although the British Open has been notorious for bringing American golfers to their knees throughout its 140-year history, Walters said his collection of Open holes is kinder and gentler -- to a point.

"It's a real playable golf course, it truly is," Walters said. "If you set this golf course up for a tournament, it could be one of the hardest golf courses in the world. But you can also set it up for daily play and it is very, very friendly.

"I didn't want to build the toughest golf course in the world, I didn't want to build the easiest golf course in the world, I wanted to build the best golf course in the world and to try to provide the most memorable golf experience that we're capable of putting together."

On that count, at least, Walters has scored an ace.

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