Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake are getting together this week, but not for a late-night talk-show interview. The occasion is the 2024 8AM Invitational, a charity event, orchestrated by Timberlake, featuring 28 celebrity golfers in a team-oriented competition at Wynn Las Vegas.
If this were People Magazine, we’d dish on the participants. But this is GOLF.com, so let’s delve into the course. Here are six things you should know about the Wynn.
1. It’s got a Rat Pack past
Before it was the Wynn, the property was the Desert Inn, a resort and casino with a course of the same name, which hosted PGA Tour, Champions and LPGA events. It was also the regular stomping grounds of Frank, Dino and the gang. You know, the golf and gimlet-loving Rat Pack.
2. It’s the only course directly on the Strip
There are other options near the Strip. But only at the Wynn can you spend all night at the tables then walk directly with your winnings to the pro shop, which in turn gives way to the first tee.
3. You’ll pay a premium
It’s not Shadow Creek-spendy (green fees there recently jumped to $1,250), but it’s a high-roller’s course — $800 is what a round will cost you, not including a caddie, who can help keep you away from all the water hazards, not to mention all the other trouble you avoid by spending four-plus hours on the course.
4. It’s a Fazio design
Tom Fazio, that is. The same man who did Shadow Creek. He cut the ribbon at the Wynn in 2005 and returned 14 years later with his son, Logan, to freshen up 10 holes and build eight new ones.
5. It’s next door to the Sphere
Odds are you’ve seen pictures. Maybe you’ve been to the venue yourself. That humongous globe-shaped structure, which opened last year, rehabbing the Vegas skyline? That would be the Sphere, and it looms just beyond the boundaries of the course, sometimes gawking at you when its video screen-covered exterior transforms into a giant blinking eye.
6. The final hole is rinse/reward
The Wynn has water, not quite everywhere, but plentiful enough to be a factor on a number of holes, nowhere more dramatically than on the par-3 18th, which plays over a lake and is backed by an enormous waterfall. There are lots of ways to make bogey on this dramatic finisher. But make an ace, and you win anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000, depending on the distance from which you jar the shot.