Long-time Shadow Creek general manager Monte Montgomery had to quickly correct himself. He’d been asked how golfers can snag a tee time at the Las Vegas showstopper, and his initial answer was promising…until it wasn’t.
“It’s real easy,” he said, adding, “I mean, it’s very difficult to get a tee time; it’s like going to any nice golf course in the country.”
What Montgomery, the guest on this week’s GOLF Subpar podcast, meant was Shadow Creek is a resort course, so it is technically easy to get a tee time there. But there are a few stipulations. Oh, and it’s going to cost you a good chunk of change.
“We got our golf reservations,” he continued, “so you can get online and find those numbers, or if you are a gambler you can go down and get a host at the casino. But weekends are reserved for comped players only, so you have to have a host. They are really the only ones that can make a reservation for you, if you are a comp player, which means you got to have a credit line to gamble. Some Sundays we open up, but Monday through Thursday you can basically call and if you stay at one of the MGM properties, minus New York-New York, Excalibur and Luxor, [you can get a time].”
Shadow Creek opened in 1989, and the Tom Fazio design cost around $60 million to build. MGM Resorts International took over ownership in 2000 and made the luxe course available for guests of designated MGM properties. The price has skyrocketed over the years. It was originally $500, but it’s now more than double that, and at $1,250 a round, it’s the most expensive public tee time in the United States.
The course ranked 14th on GOLF’s latest list of the Top 100 Courses You Can Play, and with your tee time comes a private limo ride to the golf course, caddie and locker.
Can’t make it there yourself? You’ll get a good view of it on TV later this month, when Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler take on Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau in the latest made-for-TV TNT Match on Dec. 17, which will be about six years after Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson squared off there in the first playing of the series.
You can listen to the entire interview with Montgomery here, or watch it on YouTube below.
As GOLF.com’s managing editor, Berhow handles the day-to-day and long-term planning of one of the sport’s most-read news and service websites. He spends most of his days writing, editing, planning and wondering if he’ll ever break 80. Before joining GOLF.com in 2015, he worked at newspapers in Minnesota and Iowa. A graduate of Minnesota State University in Mankato, Minn., he resides in the Twin Cities with his wife and two kids. You can reach him at joshua_berhow@golf.com.
