Rio Secco

This Rees Jones' design tests your putter again and again. Its greens are full of rolling slopes you can see and subtle breaks you can stare at forever and never discover.

Rio Secco Golf Club is a course that will make you appreciate both the skill and feel required for great putting. Even if the results hijack your scorecard.

There are tough greens and then there are Rio Secco tough greens.

"They're very unforgiving," said 22-handicapper Macy Walsh, a veteran Las Vegas golfer. "It's got to be true or it won't fall."

Getting too focused on the greens discounts the scenery at Rio Secco though. And these views deserve your full attention. Rio Secco offers a full variety of great Vegas looks because six of its holes are built on plateaus, six occupy desert areas and six are laid out in steep canyons.

This is a residential community though.

"The houses aren't that intrusive on the front nine, but they start to become irritating on the back nine," TravelGolf.com National Editor Tim McDonald said. "On the 10th hole in particular, you may feel like you're part of the family."