The $500 greens fee Tom Fazio right behind the new Wynn Las Vegas on the Strip is doing well enough. It’s not getting close to the kind of Shadow Creek and Cascata reviews that Steve Wynn no doubt assumed were his tycoon birthright.

But it holds some buzz and there are some souls actually paying $500 to play (along with the host of high roller and decent medium roller comps that dominate the tee sheets).

Still, there is plenty of talk in Las Vegas that this high-profile course could be here today, gone tomorrow. Many Vegas real estate watchers only expect Wynn to keep the course for a few years before turning it into an even more profitable casino or condominium high rise. Either developing the golf course leveling project himself or selling the land off for huge dollars.

With the hardly impressive Imperial Palace recently having been scooped up by Harrah’s for an astonishing $370 million, the thinking is Vegas real estate is just too valuable for a Strip golf course. The Imperial Palace is so blah that it’s likely to be completely demolished to make way for something new. And that land cost $370 million. It’s a lot easier to rip out a golf course.

Maybe, it’s best for the Wynn business interests that course hasn’t really wowed. All the easier to get rid of it when the time comes.

Does anyone build a golf course in Las Vegas to have a golf course anymore?

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