Most great golf courses around the world have a signature hole — one especially challenging or particularly beautiful creation that serves as that links’ claim to fame.
TPC Sawgrass has its 17th island hole. Spyglass Hill has its 4th. Pebble Beach saves its gem for the 18th. PGA National in West Palm Beach has the Bear Trap – a collection of three consecutive classic holes. Augusta offers a similar cluster at Amen Corner. Whatever elite course you’re looking at, it needs that signature hole to serve as its crown jewel and calling card.
The idea behind Bear’s Best in Las Vegas is to forge a course out of 18 signature holes gathered from other far flung golf courses designed by the legendary Jack Nicklaus – The Golden Bear.
After winning 18 major PGA championships (a record that seems more out of Tiger Woods’ reach with every passing season), Nicklaus transitioned to broadcasting and full-time golf course design. To date, he and his sons have helped build more than 300 venues.
Bear’s Best is an effort to select 18 choice cuts from that seemingly endless menagerie of Nicklaus golf holes to cook up a playing experience in which each tee shot looks out over a classic.
Located on Flamingo Road out in the Summerlin area and well west of the Vegas Strip or downtown, Bear’s Best makes its den in and around an upscale housing development that is still under construction in some places. That activity might distract current visitors, but it’s going to be settling down over the coming months. That minor, noisy nuisance aside, several holes offer great views of the distant iconic Strip on the horizon.
Obviously, the topography and environment of desert-bound Las Vegas limits the overall possible selections for Bear’s Best. You can’t easily recreate a golf hole on the Pacific coast or in the pine forests of Washington State in arid Sin City. But, the holes Nicklaus did assemble, as any player should expect, are challenging — but never maddening. An average handicap golfer should make his or her away around with a smile still teed up.
My personal favorite holes featured the unique sight of black sand bunkers. They’re a concept borrowed from Rust Belt courses — where coal country produces finely, ground up anthracite. When you put that black sand on a golf hole, it provides a more exotic vibe as players unleash their drivers.
The most charming aspect of Bear’s Best is that it could’ve have gone very upscale and, for want of a better word, snooty in its ambiance and attitude. However, the course is fully open to the public with accessible costs. With greens fees ranging from around $80 up to $200, players can enjoy a unique golf experience complete with a comfortable club house and locker room facilities.
Bear’s Best gives locals and tourists a chance to play elite golf halls at a comparatively reasonable price — making the course a true stand out amongst the countless courses winding throughout Las Vegas.
