First look: New golf, social venue opening on Strip

Matt Grech-Smith thinks the soon-to-open Swingers Crazy Golf Club at Mandalay Bay will take miniature golf to another level.

In fact, another three levels.

The co-CEO and co-founder of the 40,000-square-foot entertainment venue that opens Nov. 8 expects visitors will be surprised when they sit down for food and drinks while overlooking the four nine-hole golf courses lined with bars, a carnival area with games like skeeball, ring toss and Whack-a-Mole and party rooms that can be rented for friendly gatherings and corporate events, all on three levvels.

Players of carnival games can win points that can be redeemed for prizes, including board games, comic books and Swingers merchandise.

“It’s interesting that there’s so many different areas and zones within the venue so you can really lose yourself for a few hours, but by the time you’ve come in and you’ve taken a look at the space you grab a drink and you play a round a mini-golf, grab some food, you can go to the carnival, play some games, maybe you want to play one of the other mini-golf courses or have a drink in one of the bars that you haven’t been to,” Grech-Smith said in a phone interview from the company’s London headquarters.

Social gathering place

Swingers is more of a social gathering spot that happens to have miniature golf courses around it than a golfing venue to sharpen putting skills.

Located just off Mandalay Bay’s parking garage at the west entrance of the resort where Light and Rum Jungle stood, Swingers will have DJs, street food and caddies who will deliver drinks while the 21-and-older crowd plays.

Brooklyn-based Emmy Squared Pizza brings its first outlet to Swingers, serving frico-crust Detroit-style pizza, burgers and signature craft cocktails.

The four golf courses – named Clocktower, Hot Air Balloon, Carousel and Meteorite – have animated windmills, waterwheels and carousels, along with jumps and loops that can challenge players of all skill levels.

Dominating one side of the venue is a multistory English country estate with an English country house that constantly changes thanks to an animated projection mapping system that can transform from day to night with growing vines and holiday imagery depending on the season.

“It’s great for setting that scene and you really do feel like there’s a country house there,” Grech-Smith said. “And then we really get to kind of ramp up the energy when it gets into the evenings and maybe it’s a Saturday night or a special event like Halloween or Valentine’s. It just gives us a real canvas to play with and you can do all sorts of cool effects and video. It’s a great tool to play with.”

Floral gardens — they’re all realistically artificial — dot the space and a scent called Flower Shop wafts through the area.

“It kind of really helps your brain to go there because it works perfectly with what you’re seeing,” he said. “And now we see it like members of our team when they go into a new Swingers that perhaps they haven’t been to before they’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, it smells like Swingers,’ which is just really nice to stimulate all of the senses.”

$35 per golf round

Grech-Smith doesn’t think the price point will scare off potential customers — $35 per nine-hole golf round, plus the cost of food and drinks — because it’s something completely different for Las Vegas and is meant to be a social gathering point. They’ve researched price points with the Swingers venues that already are open in London, New York and Washington D.C. In addition to the Las Vegas venue, deemed as the new flagship for the company, Swingers also will be coming to Dubai later this year and Boston next year.