Bear's Best Las Vegas Set to Reopen as a Private Club
Bear's Best Las Vegas, the Summerlin course built from replicas of Jack Nicklaus holes, closed to public play in 2025 for a redevelopment of up to $300 million. It is due to reopen as a members-only club in October 2026.
One of the best-known public courses in Las Vegas will not be returning to public play. Bear's Best Las Vegas, in the Summerlin area on the west side of the valley, closed to the public in 2025 and is being rebuilt as a private, members-only club, with its reopening scheduled for October 2026.
A Course Built From Nicklaus Favorites
Bear's Best opened in 2001 and became a popular stop for visiting golfers thanks to its concept: 18 holes modeled on some of Jack Nicklaus's favorite holes from courses he designed around the world. It sits in The Ridges community, below the Red Rock Canyon escarpment, and covers more than 200 acres.
The Sale and the Plan
According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal and Club + Resort Business, the course was bought in spring 2024 for $30.5 million by an investor group led by Andrew Pascal, founder of the games company PlayStudios and a former Wynn Resorts executive, and Mike Mixer, co-founder of Colliers' Las Vegas office.
The new owners announced plans to invest up to $300 million to turn the property into a private club, working with the golf architecture firm Jackson Kahn Design. Their published timeline was:
- closure to public play in summer 2025;
- redevelopment starting in September 2025;
- reopening as a private club in October 2026;
- 15 boutique villas for members completed by December 2027.
Alongside the course, the plans include a boutique clubhouse, restaurants, bars, lounges, terraces and hospitality suites for visiting members. The club is now being marketed under a new name, Amara, and appears in the PGA of America's course directory as Amara Golf and Social Club.
What It Means for Golfers
For visitors and local public golfers, the change removes one more public option from Summerlin, where several of the other courses are also private. Golfers who want to play the west side of the valley will need to look at the remaining public and resort courses, or further afield in Las Vegas, Henderson and Mesquite.
We list the course on our site as Bear's Best Las Vegas, already marked as a private course, and we will update its name once the new club opens. Forecasts for the rest of the valley are on our Las Vegas and Summerlin South golf weather pages. For the best times of year to play in the area, see Golf in Las Vegas: A Season-by-Season Guide.
Sources: Club + Resort Business, "New Owners Unveil $300M Vision for Private Club in Las Vegas" (April 2025); Las Vegas Review-Journal; PGA of America course directory. The October 2026 reopening is the owners' announced target and may change.
Photo: the Wynn golf course and the Las Vegas Valley (not Bear's Best), by Tyler Bell, licensed under CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Resized from the original.
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