Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Columnist Ron Kantowski: Lack of sponsor has LVI close to missing the cut

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at [email protected] or (702) 259-4088.

Across from the main gate at the TPC at Summerlin, site of three-fifths of this week's Las Vegas Invitational, a vacant lot is being excavated.

My guess is that in six months there will be another business pad on the spot. Or another Starbucks.

Unless that's where they are planning to bury our PGA Tour stop.

Like a 5-iron struck into a stiff breeze, the LVI, the three letters by which the tournament formerly was known and is stuck with again in lieu of a title sponsor, may not make it to the green, due to a lack of green.

Unless tournament officials can entice a corporate backer out of a minimum of $3 million or talk three-time LVI champion Jim Furyk into giving a little something back to the community that has made him rich and semi-famous, you won't have to worry about finding a parking spot for next year's tournament, because there won't be one.

There is no official drop-dead date, but if the LVI can't raise the capital by Christmas, which is about the latest the PGA can dally before announcing next year's schedule, they'll be rolling out another headstone in our graveyard of failed sports teams and enterprises.

"It's not as if we haven't asked anybody," sighed tournament director Charlie Baron, a couple of hours after golf limbo -- you know, how low can you go? -- got under way at the TPC Wednesday.

It was a delightful day for red numbers on the scoreboard, yet Baron sat alone in his office, with his cell phone nearby. Just in case.

"There are conversations going on now," he said, adding that the LVI would be entertaining a couple of potential sponsors this weekend. "But it seems like we've been talking to people for a long time.

"I sure never thought we'd be in this situation."

The tournament began in 1983 with sponsorship from Panasonic, which stayed on board for six years. After that, when the golf served mostly as a five-day TV infomercial for Las Vegas, the city was happy to underwrite it, and it became the LVI by choice. Then in 2000, Invensys, a European business conglomerate, signed a deal to become the title sponsor that expired last year.

Baron has been knocking on doors ever since. All he has to show for it are bruised knuckles.

You can blame it on a sluggish economy, or the LVI's tedious pro-am format, or its lack of national media coverage during a busy month in sports, or its position on the PGA schedule, or golf's perceived elitist attitude, or Tiger Woods' absence, or that teenagers would rather ride skateboards than swing 9-irons, or the LVI's lack of a central location, or the remoteness and topography of the TPC at Summerlin, the hub course, which makes walking to and around it difficult for anybody not training for a triathlon.

Still, Las Vegas has so much to offer a sponsor and its clients, you would think companies would look past the nuisances. I mean, we ain't exactly the Quad Cities.

But if you're a golf fan, it's too bad we aren't, because the Quad Cities Open has a sponsor.

You can chuckle all you want at the mention of the John Deere Classic, but sponsors in your own back yard (or back 40) are usually the best ones to have. There's a reason why they play the Buick Classic -- or at least one of them -- in Michigan, the Shell Open in Houston and the 84 Lumber Classic in Pennsylvania.

The LVI doesn't have that option, because the PGA has adopted the same backward stance on sports and gaming that almost everybody else has, and limits the extent to which a gaming entity can become involved.

Seems a bit hypocritical, especially when you consider that if it wasn't for us, Phil Mickelson would have to drive to an Indian reservation to find some legal action.

Baron said the most successful tournaments are ones that become community happenings, or where it's the only game in town. Unfortunately, that will never happen here. In fact, I'll bet if you asked those who live in the mansions and villas that surround the TPC, and they were honest, they'd probably tell you the LVI is a bigger pain than a downhill lie.

I mean, how are you supposed to keep an appointment with your broker or analyst with all those SUVs clogging the turnarounds on Town Center Drive?

That was something I meant to ask Baron when his cell phone rang. Could it be Al Czervik calling, saying he had found $5 million in his sofa cushions and that he would like to put it toward the 2004 Caddyshack Open at TPC?

Nope. It was just the starter, informing Baron that one of the amateurs had failed to show for his tee time.

"You bring clubs?" Baron asked jokingly.

I told him that I didn't play golf.

But I do like writing about golf, at least when the PGA's best (minus Tiger) come to town.

Regardless of how you feel about game or the guys who play it, Las Vegas is on the verge of losing one of its few legitimate pro sports franchises. As a Las Vegas sports fan, that should upset you.

Because if the LVI doesn't survive, it'll be just another double bogey on our city's scorecard.

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