Southern Highlands Golf Club

Although Southern Highlands was billed as a co-design between Robert Trent Jones Jr. and his famous father, in truth the senior Jones, who would die in 2000, was retired by the time construction on this lavish Las Vegas layout began in 1998. Still, there’s a plaque on the 12th hole proclaiming it to be the last hole Mr. Jones ever designed. Regardless, Southern Highlands reflects his son Bobby’s design tenets and visuals. The Highlands was always intended to be Bobby’s answer to Tom Fazio’s Shadow Creek (ranked No. 27), but with a more financially sensible real estate component. It has the same Carolina-pines motif, the same sprawling, overly elaborate bunkers, the same kinetic water features and, if anything, even more elevation change, with the 11th tee box sitting ten stories above the fairway and providing an unobstructed view of the Las Vegas Strip several miles to the north.