Q+A: Butch Harmon on renovations at his Rio Secco Golf Club

Sam Morris/Las Vegas News Bureau

Golf teaching legend Butch Harmon has a laugh with sportscaster Brent Musburger during the induction ceremony for the Southern Nevada Sports Hall of Fame Friday, June 2, 2017, at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas

The capable hands of course architect Rees Jones and the trained eye of instructor Butch Harmon could steer most golf courses to success.

Yet as Rio Secco Golf Club, the Jones-designed track where Harmon founded his Las Vegas golf school in 1997, began to show its age, both men knew changes were needed. From how they chose to renovate their course earlier this year comes an interesting insight into golf in a resort community — sometimes, the house should not win.

Harmon, who first visited the area more than 50 years ago to play in the Nevada Open and now calls Las Vegas home, sat down with the Sun to discuss the state of golf in Southern Nevada and beyond.

When you looked at this course 20 years in, what did you see in terms of changes that needed to be made?

You look at pace of play, how long it takes to get around the golf course. This is a difficult golf course. Eighty-five percent of people that play, slice. So there were bunkers on the right side of holes that we took out that were in that 200-yard range just because the good players would hit it so much past them. We wanted to make it more difficult for them and more scoring-friendly for the higher handicaps. That was the whole idea. We may still take some more out. We’ll just see how it goes now.

As golf looks to not only attract new players but keep the ones it has, is there a need to attract the higher handicappers?

We’re a resort golf course, so we have all kinds of players. We want to give not only the best chance to have a good score, but we want you to enjoy the experience. If a golf course is too hard, people just say, the hell with it ­— I’m not coming back there to play because it’s too hard.

We’re not trying to hold a US Open here or hold a (PGA) Tour event here. We’re trying to take care of our customers. We tried to make it a lot more user-friendly.

How would you assess the overall health of the golf business in Southern Nevada?

It’s good. This facility has always made money. It does about 30,000-plus rounds a year, so it gets a lot of play. Our teaching facility is as good as any place there is. We have a lot to offer. But you have to give the people the quality. The past couple of years, the quality of the golf course hasn’t been good. I’m honest in telling you that. That’s why it was a necessity to change. It wasn’t fun to play, so it was important for us to create a nice environment again.

Golf in this city is a huge thing. It’s a huge part of what Las Vegas does. You have to have something that attracts people in the daytime as much as nighttime.

You need to have the right balance. When we were booming in the early 2000’s, everything was being built. Then we had the downfall in ‘08 when the housing market fell out and a couple of those golf courses were built around those housing developments that struggled — but that’s happened all over the country.

What have been the biggest changes in teaching technology and equipment in the past couple of decades?

Golf has evolved a lot in the 20 years since this course opened. The equipment has changed, the ball has changed, the clubs have changed. Agronomy has gotten so much better on the golf course. That is why we needed to redo everything, to bring everything up to par.

The downside, to me, with the change in equipment is you being the average golfer don’t get to take advantage of it. The Tour player hits the ball 30, 40, 50 yards farther. The ball doesn’t curve as much as it used to — that’s why they can swing so much harder. The average player doesn’t have the clubhead speed to get the advantage — that’s where I think technology should work. The best players in the world don’t need the help. It’s the 99 percent of players that play golf in the higher range, that play for recreation -- they’re the ones that need help.

What have you learned about Las Vegas in the time you’ve lived here?

I love living in this city. The rest of the world has seen what a wonderful city we have after the (October 1) tragedy we had. The only thing people think of Las Vegas is the Strip. They don’t realize over 2 million people live here. We live in beautiful communities in lovely neighborhoods. Our tax structures, our weather, everything about it is a great place to live. The rest of the world saw in such a terrible tragedy how this town came together so quickly, how we really are united. We’re a very close-knit town.

All my friends when I moved here in ‘97, they said, “Oh my God, you’ll be broke in a month as much as you like to gamble.” I learned after about a month, that wasn’t going to happen.

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