Columnist Dean Juipe: Tour pros scramble to Canyons

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2001 | 10:04 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

None of the local guys has ever completely capitalized, but there is a "home-court advantage" in the Invensys Classic at Las Vegas and it may be more obvious than ever this year.

For the second consecutive year, a "new" course has been added to the tournament's three-course rotation.

And that has to help the local contingent, which includes tour regulars Edward Fryatt, Chris Riley, Jeremy Anderson, Robert Gamez and Bob May. While those players may not know every detail or the most subtle of the intricacies of the TPC at the Canyons, they probably have played there enough to have it be worth a stroke or two over the typical PGA Tour player.

The Canyons is the Invensys newcomer, just as Southern Highlands was new to the rotation a year ago.

The more this tournament changes its courses, the better the chances for a local winner to emerge, which hasn't happened yet in the 18-year history of the event.

The continual site changes -- the Canyons now becomes the 11th Las Vegas area course to host the pros since the tournament was initiated in 1983 -- force the world's greatest players into an indoctrination period that they don't have to contend with most other weeks of the year.

"These are not typical practice days," said 12-year tour veteran Brandel Chamblee, who was at the Canyons for a second consecutive day Tuesday. He was one of many pros at the site, and, for comparison's sake, there were far more of them at the Canyons than at the (more familiar) TPC at Summerlin which is just down the road.

"There's a lot of homework to do, a lot of material to cram for," Chamblee said. "With three courses in play and only a day or two to prepare, the hardest thing is to get a feel for how the holes will play in typical winds and weather.

"Usually, the courses we play are pretty homogeneous. We know how the fairways and roughs are going to be cut, and what to expect when it comes to the speed of the greens and stuff like that.

"But coming to a new course presents certain difficulties that we don't see on a week-to-week basis. You have to get a feel for the elements."

By virtue of his two days at the Canyons, a couple of the pros who came in contact with Chamblee were asking for his advice. When the subject of the seemingly relentless blustery winds that prevail around the course came up, he remarked "Ah, this is nothing. It blew my hat off yesterday."

Of course these guys adapt to different golf courses with an ease that defies the rest of us.

Yet it has to be an advantage to have at least a token familiarity with the courses that are in use. And therein lies a built-in break for Fryatt, Riley, Anderson et al.

They've had an access that their tour cohorts haven't, and everything else being equal it gives the locals a leg up on their competition.

"Home court" comes into play in every sport, so much so that it's a significant factor in how Las Vegas sets its betting lines. While it's rare to have a golf tournament in which familiarity may be a key component, this, potentially, is it.

As such, there's no better time than the present for one of the locals to step forward and do us all a favor and win.