Routed around arroyos, water hazards and the Hyatt Regency, Jack Nicklaus's Reflection Bay is a strategic masterpiece that demands three of its architect's celebrated attributes: a high fade, pinpoint accuracy and on-course smarts. Reflection Bay is a course to be managed, not conquered.

Fairways here are generous and the bunkering stern, but much of the course's bite comes around the greens. At the 528-yard fifth hole, a stream along the right encourages golfers to aim left, where par-killing bunkers await. The green is defended on the left by mini moguls; find them and you'll face a pitch to a green that is about as slick as the stepping stones you must navigate to cross the stream and reach the putting surface.

Five holes at Reflection Bay play along the lake. The seventh, a 452-yard par 4, calls for a carry of nearly 250 yards over a gulch that cuts the fairway as decisively as a seasoned blackjack dealer. Clear the hazard and it's a short approach to a waterfront green that gathers around a deep bunker. Place your bets.

The postcard hole is the 199-yard eighth, a peninsula par 3 with breathing room to the right and watery doom to the left. But the most enjoyable hole may be the 393-yard 10th, which on the scorecard looks like the blues and greens got switched. Yes, that small green strip is the fairway, smothered by water. Watching your approach sail over all that aqua is like watching your paycheck ride a roulette wheel -- it's all or nothing.

If you need another reason to find your swing, your gallery at the 164-yard 17th, where the green juts dauntingly into the lake, might include Diva Las Vegas herself, Celine Dion, whose palace sits across the water.

The Falls is not unlike its architect, Tom Weiskopf: often entertaining, sometimes exasperating, and always in danger of derailing into something just plain goofy.

The layout looks as if its roots owed more to dynamite than to fertilizer. The front nine plays down in the flats and could put you to sleep save for the seventh, a serpentine par 5 requiring a tee shot through a rock-walled alley and a delicate approach over an arroyo to a shallow green. This is not the place to gamble. Wait for your thrills on the back nine, an exhilarating ride that rises and falls like a stack of chips at the high rollers table.

The 12th climbs 553 yards, with a blind second shot over a hill on a line cinched by bunkers and boulders. Design purists and winded duffers quit pouting when they crest the hill and take in the sweeping views of the valley and The Strip. The Stratosphere Tower is the safe line on the approach; if the pin is back-left, aiming a fade at the pyramid-shaped Luxor casino is the golf equivalent of craps: big risk, big reward.

On the next hole, you might be looking for a gondola -- not the touristy boat at the Venetian but a ski transport -- to take you down the nosebleed-inducing drop at this 388-yard dogleg-right. Faders off the tee will find their uphill approach impeded by a large rock outcropping. Any attempt to bend one around the boulder requires exactly the kind of dumb luck on which Las Vegas was built and continues to thrive.

The 13th hole is a sucker bet, but Weiskopf throws golfers a bone at the 14th, a downhill 336-yard hole that's drivable and rated easiest on the course. Greenside water hazards (and level terrain) are back in play on the closing three holes, a par 3, 4 and 5 that get progressively easier -- presumably to get those gambling juices flowing.

This Club has multiple courses:
Reflection Bay at Lake Las Vegas Resort
The Falls Golf Club at Lake Las Vegas Resort


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