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Modern Classics: Shadow Creek Steve Wynn’s monument to 1980s extravagance is one of the most unlikely—yet immensely playable—venues in golf
By Tom Dellner It’s fashionable for architects to speak of “finding” holes in the topography. There were no holes—or much of anything else—to be discovered on the 320-acre parcel of barren desert 10 miles north of the Vegas Strip that is now Shadow Creek. A golf course existed solely in the considerable imaginations of designer Tom Fazio and owner Steve Wynn. Fazio dug into the desert to manufacture an ecosystem of sorts, creating hills, canyons, lakes and streams, planting 21,000 trees, exotic plants and flowers, and importing wild turkeys, swans and wallabies—all for a cool $40 million. Shadow Creek, which debuted in 1989 amid hype that even Donald Trump would envy, might be golf’s greatest fabrication, but it’s an inspired design. On an empty canvas, Fazio composed a perfectly paced routing of well-complemented holes, building to a dramatic finish.		Shadow Creek Las Vegas, Nev. 1.866.260.0069

Modern Classics:
Shadow Creek
Steve Wynn’s monument to 1980s extravagance is one of the most unlikely—yet immensely playable—venues in golf

By Tom Dellner

It’s fashionable for architects to speak of “finding” holes in the topography. There were no holes—or much of anything else—to be discovered on the 320-acre parcel of barren desert 10 miles north of the Vegas Strip that is now Shadow Creek. A golf course existed solely in the considerable imaginations of designer Tom Fazio and owner Steve Wynn.

Fazio dug into the desert to manufacture an ecosystem of sorts, creating hills, canyons, lakes and streams, planting 21,000 trees, exotic plants and flowers, and importing wild turkeys, swans and wallabies—all for a cool $40 million.

Shadow Creek, which debuted in 1989 amid hype that even Donald Trump would envy, might be golf’s greatest fabrication, but it’s an inspired design. On an empty canvas, Fazio composed a perfectly paced routing of well-complemented holes, building to a dramatic finish.

Shadow Creek

Las Vegas, Nev.
1.866.260.0069