Reflection Bay Golf Club Eric Dutt Develops The High Performance Golf Institute by David R. Holland
L
AKE LAS VEGAS, NV. – One never knows when a kid makes a decision about his life’s work but you can be pretty sure Eric Dutt was in the gallery watching the PGA Tour’s Sahara Invitational in the 1970s when the light bulb went off.
1981 and on to the NCAA Tournament. His siblings were all accomplished players in their own right.
He was going to be in the golf business.
He’s in the Las Vegas Golf Hall of Fame and was a visionary for growth at The Badlands, Rio Secco, Cascata, Las Vegas National Golf Club, Caesars Entertainment and the Butch Harmon School of Golf. Not to mention he was involved in the Wendy’s 3-Tour Challenge, benefiting the Dave Thomas Foundation for adoption. In 1996 he generated 51,000 rounds at The Badlands, it’s first year of operations.
Today he is Manager of Operations of Reflection Bay Golf Club, taking on another resort community project to transition the 1,000 acres on Lake Las Vegas, including private SouthShore Golf Club, to profitability. The real estate recession of 2008 nailed the opulent subdivision in Henderson – one day foursomes were teeing it up, the next day no one was. Reflection Bay, a Jack Nicklaus beauty, and The Falls, a Tom Weiskopf design, were closed for business. Paulson and Company, a conglomerate founded by American hedge fund manager John Paulson, reopened Reflection Bay in 2014. The purchase included The Falls, too, but a decision was made to not reopen it.
After college he probably never envisioned himself as one of the guys to be part of Las Vegas’ growth into resort golf.
The new game plan -- The High Performance Golf Institute As Manager of Operations at Reflection Bay, Dutt is looking for excellent, pristine conditioning for a fun day on the golf course, but he’s also looking to expand a vision of providing state-of-the-art resort golf instruction scenarios to make good golfers reach loftier heights.
So they fixed the irrigation system, turned on the water, and about half the brown grass came back to green. While they were addressing getting 100 percent grass coverage Nicklaus came back and removed about a dozen bunkers and changed 20 more for playability purposes. A management company was brought in to manage the course upon reopening in November of 2014 but expectations weren’t met so the powers that be convinced Dutt to come on board and help resurrect the golf reputation of Lake Las Vegas. Apparently, it worked as Reflection Bay was just recently named the #6 Best Course You Can Play in the state of Nevada on one of the major golf publications annual rankings. So who is this guy? Many consider Dutt part of a golf pioneer family in Las Vegas. He won the Nevada State Amateur as a 17-year-old, went to Purdue to help the Boilermakers win the Big 10 golf title in www.golfvacationsmag.com
Rees Jones and Eric Dutt at Cascata Golf Vacations • September 2020 21
