The final round of our golf trip was at Cascata Golf Club, which is one of the top-shelf public courses in Las Vegas (think along the lines of Shadow Creek and Wynn). You seem to hear a lot about Shadow Creek and Wynn, but not as much about Cascata. I’m not sure if that is because of Cascata’s more remote location, out in Boulder City, or something else.

Still, Cascata finds its way into the top-100 public rankings and it has been a course I’ve always wanted to play. Thanks to a good deal ($319 per person to play both Rio Secco and Cascata) my friend and I decided to check it out. We paid the $319 at Rio Secco on Wednesday and all we were responsible for at Cascata was a $50 per player tip to our caddie.

Even after the package discount, Cascata is an expensive round. I went into the round sort of doubting that the course could live up to the hype considering the price tag. Ultimately, Cascata turned out to be one of those rare perfect golf days (well, perfect besides all my three putts) and the course jumped somewhere into my personal top-10 favorites.

Cascata is set in the foothills of Boulder City, about 30 minutes from the Strip. The course is a Rees Jones design – opening in 2000 – and everything about Cascata gives off a high-class vibe. Most of the round it felt like the golf course itself took a back seat to the golfing experience! However, I thoroughly enjoyed the course.

For example – you get buzzed in through the gates and drive up a twisting road to the massive clubhouse. Once inside the clubhouse you’ll find a river flowing through the middle of it and your golf cart parked in an indoor staging area. Then you get out to the course and experience the same thing. ‘Cascata’ is Italian for ‘waterfall’ and you’ll find multiple waterfalls throughout the course, including two on the 12th hole!

The course turned out to be a good design and it is one of the hillier courses in the Las Vegas area I’ve played. The course has a mountain feel and almost all of the holes have plenty of up and down to them. At times Cascata felt like Wolf Creek Golf Club up in Mesquite, just with more land and less quirk.

The front nine here is mostly uphill, but if you can get through those holes then the back hits you with tons of elevated tee shots. You’ll get great views of what I think is the Eldorado Valley and the nearby mountains. Unfortunately, the cloud cover kept the course from sparkling most of the day like it should, but you’ll get the idea from my pictures.

We played the blue tees which are 72.7/140/6638 and there seemed to be a good mix of challenge and reward. Cascata isn’t a course where you’ll always need driver and you can end up thinking your way around. I also noticed that it is possible to use the slopes to get the ball close if you play to the high side of most holes. The course plays through the desert so the rocky terrain is in play and a good number of holes have water.

Cascata has a great collection of golf holes, highlighted by two short(ish) par-3’s. On the front nine the 7th is a 139 yarder that plays slightly downhill. The green is cut into a rocky cliff and perched above a couple bunkers. I pulled my tee shot and it caught the left edge of the green, which turned out great because there is water off to the left that cannot be seen from the tee!

The back nine has another short par-3 (the 12th) that is similar to the 7th. The 12th is 150 yards although it plays a bit uphill to another green carved into the desert hillside. Once you park the cart you’ll see two waterfalls behind the green which feed the water hazard guarding the green.

As I expected the conditions were great. The only blemish would be some rocky fairway bunkers. The turf was lush and the greens were pure. Because of the quick pace of the greens a tough aspect was trying to play feet of break on my putts. Thankfully our caddie helped a lot!

As I mentioned I greatly enjoyed my time at Cascata and for the package price we paid I’d highly recommend a round here. We even got a bonus as we saw some bighorn sheep on the 17th hole! If you are in Las Vegas put this one on your list.

Course Pictures (click any picture to scroll through the gallery):