“Thank you for saving the Greenbrier.”
/You know the CBS announce team will be in relentless suck-up mode this weekend for the inaugural Greenbrier Classic, so before they have you hating the resort's savior, Jim Justice, check out Hunki Yun's Links Magazine profile. It's a good read.
This caught my eye...I wonder if there is sports betting on site?
Next up is the completion of the casino, which Justice describes as “Monte Carlo meets Gone with the Wind.” The facility will be 100,000 square feet in size and $80 million in cost, four times what Justice paid for the resort itself. This amenity is sure to be polarizing, with traditionalists decrying its incongruity and more-contemporary guests cheering the addition of an evening activity at a resort that still has signs in the hallways asking for quiet: “It’s sleepy time down South.”
Those fearing that the Greenbrier will turn into a mountain version of Harrah’s, with tour buses depositing gamblers at the front door, will be heartened by the regulations. For one, the casino will be underground, discreetly out of view. Second, there will be restrictions for access, by West Virginia law: Only resort guests, homeowners and members, as well as those attending events at the resort but staying off-property (but only if more than 400 of the 721 rooms are sold).
“I don’t want the casino to be the driver of the hotel,” says Justice.
Yun also notes this about the C.B. Macdonald course restored by Lester George:
It will be fascinating to see how players react to holes like the 205-yard 3rd, a Biarritz with a deep valley bisecting the green, and the Alps, the 474-yard 13th, which asks for a blind second shot. The most dramatic hole could be the finishing one: Short. The 162-yarder has a green dominated by a large horseshoe-shaped ridge that could either repel or contain shots. Depending on the hole location, there is a chance that the tournament could end with a hole-in-one.