The Golf life - Nemacolin Woodlands Resort

The Golf life
No-limit g
t game
At Nemacolin
Woodlands,
resort guests
are in Luck:
a new casino
raises the pot
By Martin Kaufmann
Farmington, Pa.
As guests approach Nemacolin
No. 15 at Nemacolin Woodlands’
Mystic Rock course
Woodlands Resort from the east on
U.S. Route 40, one of the first structures
they pass on the 2,000-acre property is
the Lady Luck Casino.
The casino sits a mile from the main
hotel, Chateau Lafayette. It’s not far
from the first hole at Mystic Rock, a
former PGA Tour site, and just down the
road from Nemacolin Wooflands, where
Fido can order room service prepared
by the resort’s chefs, enjoy a facial, swim
in the indoor pool or nap in his private
suite. Two-legged guests can feed lions,
tigers, bears, even a friendly camel
named Norman on the Safari Tour near
Nemacolin’s Links Course. Or they can
go ziplining, play paintball or take Jeeps
off-roading at the Adventure Center. For
the more contemplative guests, there’s
the 42-room Woodlands Spa or the new
Holistic Healing Center.
There’s more – much more – but you
get the picture, right? At Nemacolin
Woodlands, there’s a lot of stuff going
on. Chris Plummer, the resort’s general
manager, likes to say, “We’re in the
participation business. People come
here to do stuff.”
Lady Luck Casino, operated through
a partnership with St. Louis-based Isle of
Capri Casinos, is more stuff to entertain
Nemacolin’s corporate and leisure
guests. It has 28 tables and 550 slots,
and live entertainment at the Lone
Wolf lounge.
Nemacolin officials pursued a casino
since at least 2006, and finally opened
Lady Luck on July 1, 2013. For all of the
amenities Nemacolin offers its guests,
Plummer considers the casino one of the
Nemacolin, P30 >>>
courtesy of nemacolin woodlands resort
Golfweek
.
May 23, 2014
.
golfweek.com
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The Golf life
photos courtesy of nemacolin woodlands resort
At right, Nemacolin Woodlands’ boutique
hotel, Falling Rock, also serves as the
clubhouse and overlooks Mystic Rock’s
18th hole. Below right, the resort’s
Lady Luck Casino opened last July.
<<< Nemacolin, P29
four “cornerstones” of the resort, along
with conferences, golf and spa.
Despite resort officials’ long interest
in gaming, opening Lady Luck was
not a decision made lightly because of
concerns that it could dent Nemacolin’s
family-friendly positioning. Ever since
84 Lumber founder Joe Hardy bought
the former hunting lodge in 1987,
the resort has been almost obsessive
about adding amenities. There are
commonplace activities (bowling,
tennis, miniature golf, disc golf) and
more obscure diversions (year-round
dogsledding, with wheeled sleds in the
summer). There are outdoor sports
(shooting, fly fishing, archery) and
winter sports (skiing, snowshoeing).
There are adventure sports (climbing
wall, downhill mountain biking)
and more sedentary pursuits (a
27,000-bottle wine cellar, plane and
car museums, and a $45 million art
collection). But pre-casino, Nemacolin
Woodlands could get pretty sleepy
in the evening.
“The nightlife was going to The
Tavern (in Chateau Lafayette) and
playing pool,” said Brian Anderson,
director of resort operations. Plummer said plans always called
for locating the casino away from the
lodging, so that it would be available to
guests, but not something that changes
the resort’s culture. In fact, so far only
about 10 percent of visitors are resort
guests, according to Rich Laudon, the
casino’s general manager. (Pennsylvania
law requires that casino visitors either
stay at the resort or pay a $10 resort
fee.) “I read 7,000 comment cards a
year, and not one time has it said, ‘I’m
not coming back because you have a
casino,’ ” Plummer said. “It’s been the
exact opposite. . . . Our No. 1 increase
in comment-card scores has been stuff
to do at night. It blows my mind how
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Golfweek
.
May 23, 2014
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golfweek.com
much that has changed.”
Nemacolin Woodlands is
a drive-to destination, with
guests typically staying two
days. It draws heavily from
Washington and Baltimore,
western Pennsylvania and
eastern Ohio. Fifty-five
percent of its business is
corporate, helped by the
state’s booming energy
industry.
Plummer said he has seen evidence
that the casino is bolstering midweek
business, though with some rooms out
of service as part of a $30 million resortwide renovation, the impact can’t yet be
quantified.
Even with the addition of the
casino, Mystic Rock remains one of
Nemacolin’s chief attractions. Ranked
No. 2 among Golfweek’s Best Courses
You Can Play in Pennsylvania, Mystic
Rock is immediately identifiable as a
Pete Dye design. On the first tee players must avoid
the deep swale and bunker right of the
heavily sculpted fairway. The eighth
green is perched high enough that
errant shots might require chipping
with a hybrid rather than a wedge.
The 16th is classic Dye: a zigzagging
par 5, pristinely landscaped, ending in
a peninsula green. On the par-3 17th,
the green is bracketed by water left and,
on the right, a pot bunker that is barely
large enough to allow a swing.
Mystic Rock might be the only
course in America with a pro shop
and locker rooms located in a AAA
Five Diamond hotel. Falling Rock, the
42-room boutique hotel that sits above
the 18th green, exemplifies the can-do
spirit that permeates the resort. Falling Rock was built in the space
of nine months and finished in time for
the second playing of the PGA Tour’s
84 Lumber Classic in September 2004.
It was intended to be a clubhouse, with
some rooms for players and VIPs. The
Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired hotel,
complete with private butlers and
the Aqueous steakhouse, has received
AAA’s highest rating each year since
2006. Aqueous’ Four Star status makes
it no more than the bridesmaid at
Nemacolin, where Lautrec restaurant
claims a rare distinction: It holds
Five Diamond and Five Star ratings. By next spring, Plummer said, the
resort will begin work on a 32-unit real
estate development near the golf course,
and is considering adding lodging near
the casino.
More “stuff,” as he likes to say.
m