Golf course guru Bill Walters once said he’s been lucky when it comes to his dealing with local governments. And that’s true, if you define “luck” as outrageous political influence, juiced by generous political contributions.

And those relationships and that money pays off. Take the Case of the Phantom Golf Course, for example. Back in 2001, the county struck a lease agreement with Walters for 320 acres of land at Durango Drive and Warm Springs Road. He was supposed to build a pair of golf courses for the public.

But no golf courses ever appeared. Instead, Walters came to the county one year later to get 40 of those acres rezoned for him to build commercial and offices. Now, you don’t have to have a master’s in urban planning to realize that a “golf course” and a “for-profit commercial office complex” are not the same thing. And you don’t need to have gone to Harvard Business School to know Walters was going to make more money building a fancy commercial project than fairways.

But “luck” was with Walters that day in 2002, and the county agreed with his request.

And still, no golf courses appeared on the remaining 280 acres. Flash forward to today, when the commission is passing a ban on new golf courses, since they suck too much water and we are, after all, in a drought.

So, the commission asked Walters to give the 280 acres back, so the county could build a park that doesn’t use a lot of water. Cactus, Rock and Joshua Tree park, we can call it. And wouldn’t you know it? Walters agreed! What a prince of a guy!

It was left to Clark County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates to put things in perspective. “I knew all along a golf course was not going to be built there; that is not news to me,” she said, according to the Review-Journal. He was glad to give that land back. He was never going to develop it. He walked away with a huge commercial piece that he initially said was going to be a golf course. Taxpayers end up with the short end of the stick.”

And, what she didn’t say, was that short end of the stick was shoved right up our collective … wallets. (What did you think we were going to say?)

Why not insist at the time Walters came back and asked for re-zoning that he pay full price for the land he wanted to develop? Good question. But, once more, Walters was lucky to avoid it.