Atomic Golf is the $75 million 100,000-square-foot four story golf-entertainment mega venue that opened in March next to the STRAT. It’s an ambitious undertaking, with 101 golfing bays spread from one end of the four floors to the other, all using the 216-yard driving range. Each has a video box that you face as you play, loaded with seven proprietary games; you can battle aliens or another team’s space ship, play blackjack by hitting cards, aim for a bull’s-eye or the longest distance, or just practicing your swing.
There’s also a “putting district” with eight bays, mini-golf meets video games, where the clubs and the ceiling use sensors to track where the golf ball goes. The central Astrocade watch-party area features a 40-foot LED screen, a DJ spinning very loud music, and games such as cornhole. Six bars include the exclusive Tap Room on the third floor and a full menu of drinks and sports bar food is delivered to your bay by waitresses. Bays are $60 to rent.
Atomic Golf has experienced well-publicized problems since it opened. The driving range faces west, so when the sun is setting, it not only gets very very hot, but you’re looking straight into it as you play; portable a/c fans and misters provide little relief. The lack of early business forced the venue to lay off 33% of its workforce.
But on a Thursday night in late July when we visited, the place was jam packed with golfer-partyers drinking, eating, and slicing, hooking, shanking, and whiffing golf balls all over the range. The parking lot was full, so we had to park at the STRAT (covered elsewhere in the newsletter).
Frankly, we didn’t play. We were just there to see one of the two drone shows performed on Thursday nights at 9 and 11 p.m. After dark, the sun wasn’t in anyone’s faces, though it was good and toasty in the open 100-degree air and the kids retreated to stand in front of the fans from time to time to get some relief.
But the golfers were having a blast, people were watching the big screen in the Astrocade, and when the drone show started at 9:01 p.m., no one noticed. They barely knew to look out at it over the fence posts. That’s the best advertisement we can imagine for the place.
