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If you have ever fantasized about what it would be like to find yourself immersed in a video game, just go to Las Vegas. If "What Happens Here, Stays Here" is the perfect slogan for Sin City, then "Choose Your Own Adventure" is its ethos.
This is just as true for a golf sicko as anyone else. You can play in the lap of luxury or get down and dusty - in a good way - with the masses and savvy locals.
Having only a hazy memory of a Vegas trip with my extended family when I was four years old - all I remember is that we stayed in the castle-themed Excalibur hotel and visited the Hoover Dam - I had been waiting decades for the right opportunity to experience it properly. When I found myself shut out of all other plausible qualifying sites for the 2026 U.S. Mid Amateur, the words "Boulder Creek Golf Club - Boulder City, Nevada" shone on the USGA Championship sign-up site, with plenty of spots in the field available. Knowing a PR rep for Vegas' tourism bureau had recently reached out about me making a visit, the stars had finally aligned like so many blinking LED billboards. I was in.
Heat and putting in Las Vegas, and my own Dr. Gonzo
Hunter S. Thompson's great 1971 novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, immortalized first in print and later in Terry Gilliam's entertaining 1998 film, goes far beyond my own square lifestyle. Whatever dark delights Thompson's sloshing valise of drugs and alcohol provided him, I am more than satisfied by a well-struck 8-iron and a great post-round meal. Maybe I'll have a cocktail, maybe not. Maybe I'll play some low-stakes poker, maybe I won't. Boring? Guilty, but as I discovered among Las Vegas' parallels to the game that obsesses me, there was no judgment from those around. Everyone else living it up on and off the Strip is simply too immersed in their own experience to care much about anyone else's. I toted my golf bag up to my comfy MGM Grand suite every evening to hilariously early bedtimes by the standards of the city, slightly self-conscious at first until I realized there were no quizzical looks from the gamblers and conference-goers surrounding me. They'd seen much weirder sights, and they had their own business to attend to. I was anonymous; anonymity is freedom, and freedom is Vegas' greatest and most dangerous appeal.
If my Vegas lifestyle was going to be decidedly un-Thompson-like - play golf, eat, sleep, repeat - I was thrilled to have along for the ride my own Dr. Gonzo: my friend John, not an attorney but a restaurateur in our Florida town, who had jumped at the opportunity to serve as my caddie for the qualifier because it would enable him to spend a few days in a place he loves and knows well. He was my Vegas sherpa, an incredible ambassador for the town.
Quick Las Vegas hotel review: MGM Grand
My Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Association contact set me up with a 20th-floor suite in the MGM Grand. The vast, 4,000-plus-room hotel has undergone a nine-figure renovation in recent years, and my room, 20105, presented very nicely: spacious and well-appointed. The bed was good, the A/C was strong and chilly enough and the water pressure in the shower was almost too intense: perfect for an impromptu massage after exhausting golf days. MGM Grand seems to sit comfortably in the middle of the budget range as Strip hotels go. I felt quite comfortable there, although after making the lengthy walk from the parking garage to my room several times, I found myself wondering if the off-Strip casino resorts might be a little easier, logistically speaking, for golfers.
Day 1 (the longest)
We were still bleary-eyed after a 100-mile zero-dark-thirty drive to the airport, but the Vegas experience began while we were seated by our gate in Orlando. JetBlue gate-agent Andy, who looked like he could moonlight as an Elvis Presley impersonator, got on the microphone and began hawking ticket upgrades for travelers who wanted to start separating themselves from their money early. It was $200 to go from a coach seat to an exit row seat, up to $999 (not $1,000, crucially) to slide all the way forward to JetBlue's first-class equivalent, Mint. I had never heard a spiel like that before a flight to, say, Milwaukee.
After just shy of five hours in the sky in my un-upgraded but comfortable EvenMore seat, with a descent that showed off the Grand Canyon out my window, John and I stumbled out into the blast-furnace and took a level-setting early lunch at In-N-Out, a must for me anytime I land somewhere out West. Then it was on to Las Vegas Paiute Golf Resort, an impressive 54-hole facility whose courses have dominated GolfPass' annual Golfers' Choice rankings for years. This year was no exception, with all three of the club's courses appearing on our U.S. Top 50 list, a testament not just to design but the overall experience. We had snagged an afternoon tee time at Sun Mountain, the highest-rated (#23) of the three Paiute courses. It's a 1996 Pete Dye design that meanders the sloping side of a valley that faces the vast Desert National Wildlife Refuge, lending spectacular views from every hole.
As soon as I caught sight of the Paiute courses on the drive in, I understood why the facility garners particularly high Conditions ratings from reviewers. The presiding Paiute tribe's water rights enable them to irrigate their courses as much as necessary to combat triple-digit temperatures. I could not believe the lushness (still with a hint of firmness) of the place. I did not expect to be playing golf on a 105-degree day on near-flawless bentgrass greens; call it an early bit of Vegas-variety shock and awe. I am eager to see what Las Vegas Paiute's Snow Mountain and Wolf courses are like on a future visit.
As I've gotten older, I've become more susceptible to jet-lag and fatigue from shifting time zones. John's and my 8:30 pm dinner reservation - feeling like 11:30 back home - was daunting, but when we met up with our PR fixer at Cantina Contramar, a new upscale Mexican joint at the chic new Fontainebleau hotel at the top of the Strip, the world-class tortilla chips and the best ceviche I have ever tasted gave us just enough fuel not to faceplant into our plates.
Day 2
Summer golf in Las Vegas is not for the ill-prepared. Living in hot and humid Florida, I know how to keep cool on the course, going beyond the simple admonition to push fluids and re-apply sunscreen. My secret weapon is cooling towels, which I religiously dunk in cold water and drape over the back of my neck between shots. I sometimes leave the towel on while putting. My go-to is a years-old, PGA Tour-branded cooling towel that is similar to the tried-and-true Frogg Toggs Chilly Pad, which, at less than $12 on Amazon (NOTE: affiliate link; GolfPass may get a portion of proceeds), is as close to a no-brainer purchase for a hot-weather golfer as anything I know of.
John and I rolled up to Painted Desert Golf Club, a local loop in North Las Vegas. If Las Vegas Paiute was the lush oasis at a slightly more attainable price level than the likes of the $700 Wynn course or the $1,250 Shadow Creek, Painted Desert represented a solid relative bargain option, if not quite on the $5.99 steak-and-eggs level of suspiciously low price and quality.
After all, Painted Desert also had bent grass greens, and while some of them showed understandable amounts of summer stress, most of them rolled just fine, and the Jay Morrish design was more interesting than I might have otherwise expected. Morrish laid out two of my favorite Arizona courses - the North and South at The Boulders - and Painted Desert did not disappoint on the design front. The par 3s were strong and each nine had a compelling short par 4 as well. It is well-priced and worth considering as a more modest Las Vegas golf trip option.
With all due respect to a pleasant round at Painted Desert, the highlight of Day 2 was the food. John and I breakfasted at a Strip institution, the Peppermill, a diner of infinite neon-chic style and excellent kielbasa and eggs. We bookended the day with dinner at China Mama, which became a viral sensation a few years ago and has since expanded from one location to four spread out across greater Vegas. John had been talking up China Mama so much that I secretly felt sure it would fall short of expectations. I have never been happier to be wrong. The crispy beef, salted-egg-yolk prawns and dan dan noodles were all home runs. The service, impeccable. I'm still thinking about our dinner there, weeks after our trip.
Days 3 & 4
Having acclimated to the 2,500-foot elevation (good for about half a club of extra carry) and the dry heat (good for feeling like a roast chicken), the trip got a bit more serious. I had been trying to prepare seriously for the Mid-Am qualifier for the last three months, and any time you arrive at a long-anticipated moment, the nerves start sitting on your chest and things can get dicey. That's exactly what happened when John and I arrived for a practice round at Boulder Creek Golf Club, half an hour southeast of the Strip, and I realized I didn't have my golf shoes with me.
After an extra round-trip drive over gorgeous Railroad Pass, I finally got to know what must be one of the Vegas area's most underrated courses. Boulder Creek's arm's-length remove from all the commotion of main-line Las Vegas gives it a calm, quiet energy that is a perfect palate-cleanser. The course itself is a good one, laid out in the 2000s by Mark Rathert, a former Robert Trent Jones II associate who has worked extensively overseas. Big corridors, many-fingered bunkers, a motif of alternate fairway routes and mildly contoured greens place it squarely into the late-modern design mode. The city-owned course is one of the best-conditioned munis I have ever seen, with perfect Bermuda fairways and yet another collection of bentgrass greens that rolled perfectly, even on days that topped 105 degrees. Standout holes included the par-3 8th and 17th, as well as a couple of scenic, risk-reward par 5s.
Boulder Creek has recently become a go-to course for competitive amateur golf in the area. In 2024, it hosted the NCAA Division III national championship, and welcomed D-II nationals earlier in 2026. Even though I came up short, having set a good tone with a fun eve-of-competition dinner at Morimoto back at my hotel, Boulder Creek proved a great venue for the U.S. Mid-Amateur qualifier. You can read more about my experience on that day here.
Day 5 (departure day)
A proper Las Vegas trip should end with a bang, not a whimper, so before leaving town I made myself a tee time at Bali Hai Golf Club, which sits just south of the Strip. As with most things around the Strip, it's important to suspend your cynicism or sensitivity to kitsch. From the tropical-themed clubhouse to the oasis-like course itself, Bali Hai is the quintessential Las Vegas golf experience. If you want cocktails at 7:30 am, someone is willing to serve them to you. I even saw a group of dudes heading out onto the course with a troupe of bubbly young female "caddies." Choose Your Own Adventure, indeed. However you approach Bali Hai, it is not cheap and it's a bit chaotic - wedged between the Strip and the airport's busy flightpath - but it has the potential to be tons of fun if you let it.
Something as pedantic as course design is not really the point of Bali Hai, but I couldn't help caring about it during my getaway-day round. Architects Brian Curley and Lee Schmidt teamed up on several courses in the 1990s and 2000s, and Bali Hai showcases their talent and experience, both coming from the Pete Dye tree. If your goal is simply to have a serious four-ball match with your buddies, Bali Hai's strategic and at times entertainingly concave features will encourage it. There are even hidden, kooky "high roller" tee boxes on most holes, perched at the top of stone stairways with artificial turf mats and gold tee markers.
A round at Bali Hai could not have been a better sendoff for my first grown-up Las Vegas trip. I had arrived skeptical and a little bit cynical about Las Vegas. I returned home wondering when I might be able to get back for another crack at it.
Comments (1)
Great write up. It really is magical how they keep courses alive in 115 degree heat. Next time splurge for the Wynn course and let us know how it's holdin up.
Great write up. It really is magical how they keep courses alive in 115 degree heat. Next time splurge for the Wynn course and let us know how it's holdin up.