Course News
Bear's Best Las Vegas Is Becoming Amara: What We Know
The Jack Nicklaus 'greatest hits' course closed in 2025 and is being rebuilt as Amara Golf & Social Club, a private club. Here's what's confirmed, and what's only reported.
Updated · November 8, 2026
Bear's Best Las Vegas was one of the more unusual concepts in the valley: a Jack Nicklaus design that assembled 18 replica holes drawn from his signature courses around the world — a "greatest hits" tour you could play in a single afternoon in Summerlin. It's now closed, and being rebuilt into something different. Because there's a lot of speculation floating around, here's only what we can actually verify.
What's confirmed
The course is closed to public play. Bear's Best ceased operations in 2025. Its run as a daily-fee Nicklaus replica course is over.
It was sold and is being redeveloped. The property changed hands and is undergoing a major redevelopment reported in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The plan is not a simple refresh of the existing course — it's a full transformation of the site, including new luxury residential development alongside the golf.
It's becoming a private club. This is the most important point for visitors to understand: the site is being rebuilt as a private, members-only club under a new name, Amara Golf & Social Club — not a reopening of the public Bear's Best that golf travelers could book on a whim. The boutique-clubhouse, members-club direction is a deliberate shift away from public-access golf.
No opening date is confirmed. Public reporting pointed to an October 2026 opening for the reimagined club, with residential phases extending beyond that. That date has passed, and as of November 2026 no confirmed opening date has been published.
What made the original worth remembering
The Bear's Best concept was genuinely novel. Rather than design an original 18, the project recreated 18 of Jack Nicklaus's favorite holes from his designs around the world — a single round that walked you through Nicklaus's greatest hits, holes pulled from courses scattered across continents and reassembled in the Summerlin desert. It was a curiosity and a conversation piece as much as a championship test, and for golf travelers it offered something no other Vegas course did. That specific experience is what's now ending; whatever opens on the site will be a different proposition entirely.
Part of a bigger trend
Bear's Best isn't an isolated case. The valley has seen public-access courses move upmarket or private as Las Vegas land values climb and developers chase luxury residential — the same forces that turned the former Rio Secco into the rebranded, premium Serket. For visitors, the practical lesson is that the public-access map changes, and it's worth confirming a course's current status before building a trip around it.
What membership is reported to cost
Amara has not published a rate card. Las Vegas real-estate briefings report an initiation fee from $250,000, rising after every 50 memberships sold, dues of about $4,000 a month, and a cap of 250 memberships plus 15 for owners of the clubhouse villas. Those are reported figures, not a quote from the club; the Amara Golf & Social Club page carries the current reported terms, and inquiries go through the club's own site, amaragolf.com.
What we still won't print is an opening day or a final routing. Redevelopment timelines move, and a stated target is not a confirmed opening date — we'll update this page when the club announces one.
What it means for visitors
If you came to Vegas hoping to play the old Bear's Best, that option is gone, and the course that replaces it appears headed for private membership rather than public tee sheets. The practical move is to redirect to the valley's deep bench of accessible Nicklaus and championship golf. Reflection Bay on Lake Las Vegas is a public-access Nicklaus design, Coyote Springs is a Nicklaus Signature layout north of town, and TPC Las Vegas and Serket give you tour-quality public golf nearby.
The valley loses one distinctive course but keeps dozens of excellent, bookable ones — and the best way to plan around a closure like this is to stay current on what's actually open. For the bigger picture on access in the valley, read our guide on public versus private Las Vegas golf, or browse every course.