Columnist Peter Benton: Southern Nevada juniors event goes down to wire

Peter Benton

Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2004 | 9:59 a.m.

Peter Benton's golf column appears Wednesday.

The Southern Nevada Junior Golf Association's recent Tournament of Champions, sponsored by Marnell Carrao Associates, was a match-play event with the qualifying round played at the Las Vegas Country Club, and the final contested over the South Shore Golf Club.

In the boys 15-17 division, Alex Scott, who defeated Adam Tebbs, and Matt Nolasco, who defeated Richard Pawlasek in their semifinal matches, had a terrific duel in their final match with Scott finally prevailing 1-up.

Girls 15-17 semifinal winners Mackenzie Mack and Alex Gibson staged a stirring battle before the latter emerged victorious, 3 and 2.

Kevin Collignon and Howard Pruse went head-to-head in the boys 13-14 division with Pruse eking out a narrow 1-up triumph, while in the boys 11-12 final, Andrea Topping beat Nicholas Roman, 3 and 2.

It was Nicolette Rivera vs. Tarneka Demps in the girls 11-14 bracket with Demps prevailing 3 and 2.

Tiger Woods, the world's current No. 1 golfer, the winner of every major championship whose amateur career was one of the best ever, did not do it either. ...

I am referring to the extraordinary year that UNLV senior-to-be Ryan Moore has achieved. It is positively remarkable and the chances of his feat ever being duplicated are indeed doubtful.

Think about it. As well as winning the Mountain West Conference title, this unassuming young man was victorious in the NCAA championship. He followed that with a win in the U.S. Public Links Championship, then came wins in the Western Amateur, the Sahalee Players Championship, and last week, to top it all off, he won the big one, the U.S. Amateur Championship.

Sincere congratulations go out to Ryan Moore.

The $1 million purse makes this one of the richest two-day events in the history of golf. Each of the first six holes will be worth $25,000; each of the second six will be worth $50,000; holes 13 through 17 will each offer $70,000 to the winner, while the 18th hole, the Merrill Lynch Super Skin, will be worth a whopping $200,000.

Ruiz fired a 3-under 69 while Hammond's 2-under on the par-72 layout earned him a spot via a sudden-death playoff with Jay Don Blake and Brock Mackenzie.