Columnist Peter Benton: Fans have to get out to pro golf events

Peter Benton

Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2001 | 10:06 a.m.

Peter Benton's golf column appears Wednesday.

It was only a couple of years ago that we lost the LPGA Tour stop in Las Vegas. Now, the Las Vegas Senior Classic is gone.

Last week's PGA Tour event, our own Invensys Classic, must be a source of great concern for the tournament's host, The Las Vegas Founders' Club.

Blessed with gorgeous weather, a star-studded field of the world's most talented golfers, incredible scoring with course and tour scoring records being broken, and a winner not being decided until the final hole made this tourney incredibly exciting from start to finish.

As with the two tournaments alluded to earlier, the Invensys had but one thing lacking -- spectators.

There is no doubt that it was lack of support from locals that largely was the cause for the demise of both the LPGA and Senior PGA Tour stops here in Las Vegas. And unless we start appreciating and taking advantage of what we are being offered, we could very well eventually lose our PGA event as well.

I realize that when this tournament's home course was the Las Vegas Country Club (and the Dunes and Desert Inn layouts also were utilized), it certainly made things easier.

However, the city has virtually doubled in size and the two latter courses are out of the picture.

So what is the problem?

My personal feelings are that Las Vegans in general are either too lazy and do not want to be inconvenienced to drive to the now more distant sites, have become so blase with what this town has to offer that complacency has set in, would rather catch all the action via television, take too much for granted or just don't give a damn.

A sorry state indeed, and as with many things in life, it is often not until you lose someone or something forever that you finally appreciate what you had.

Professional golf in Vegas began when Al Besselink won the first Tournament of Champions over the Desert Inn layout back in 1953, and has continued virtually ever since.

If we do not rid ourselves of this couldn't-care-less attitude, we could very well drop off the golfing map -- and that would be tragic, indeed.