Columnist Peter Benton: Residents’ apathy may cause PGA’s exit

Peter Benton

Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2003 | 9:33 a.m.

Peter Benton's golf column appears Wednesday.

Well, gang, after 50-odd years of virtually continuous professional golf coming to our valley, I think we have finally "done it" (in the negative sense).

By "done it," I am of course alluding to the fact that as of now it looks entirely possible that we will no longer have men's professional golf in Las Vegas. Unless something unforeseen and unexpected happens, we might be left with nothing but pleasant memories.

In 1953, the Tournament of Champions -- our first pro event -- was played over the old Desert Inn Country Club layout. The Sahara Invitational followed, then came the Panasonic Invitational. In 1989 the tournament became the Las Vegas Invitational, until 2000, when for three years the Invensys Classic came aboard. Without a sponsor for this year's event the Las Vegas Founders Club took over the reins.

Now unfortunately there is a distinct possibility that this tournament could become history as has the Senior PGA Tour event that we enjoyed here for so many years.

If it were not for the timely appearance of the LPGA's Takefuji Classic, played over the Las Vegas Country Club layout last April, and contracted for two more years, we would not have the women professionals either. You may recall that 20 years ago their annual trek here for the J&B Scotch Pro-Am was always a huge hit.

I can recall penning a column a couple of years ago stating that if we did not support our one remaining professional event -- the PGA Tour stop -- we would undoubtedly lose it as we had the LPGA and Senior PGA Tour stops.

This city has indeed got itself into a sorry state, and as with many things in life (far too many I am sad to say), it is often not until you lose someone or something and it has gone away forever, that you finally appreciate what you had.

Las Vegas has never ceased to amaze me, as over the years we have seen attempts to establish jai alai, greyhound racing, arena football, indoor soccer and ice hockey, plus other sports I am sure. However, each and everyone of them have failed -- and why?

My personal feeling on the subject is that Las Vegans, and I am of course generalizing here, are either:

We have, however, been blessed over the years with some incredible highs and conversely, some disappointing lows.

For highs how about Nancy Lopez thrilling us all, not just with her captivating smile but with her three victories here; Bruce Crampton winning our inaugural LV Senior Classic and receiving his winnings of 37,500 silver dollars via a wheelbarrow delivered to the 18th green; and Tiger Woods, Jim Furyk and Phil Tataurangi making the Las Vegas Invitational their first PGA Tour victories.

The lows of course are losing the Senior PGA and now quite possibly the regular PGA Tour events, because once they have departed this fair city it is very doubtful we will ever see them again.

The bottom paragraph of the column I wrote a couple of years ago, and which I mentioned earlier, read: "If we do not rid ourselves of this couldn't-care-less and apathetic attitude and start supporting what we are being provided, we could very well drop off the world professional golfing map -- and that would be tragic."

Now look at the precarious position we are in.