Columnist Adam Candee: LVI gets its sponsor and solidifies its future

Adam Candee

Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2004 | 8:51 a.m.

Adam Candee covers golf for the Sun. Reach him at (702) 259-4085 or by e-mail at candee@lasvegassun.com.

The Las Vegas Invitational is no more.

That's good, though, because it means that the city's October PGA tour stop finally found a title sponsor after an exhaustive, frustrating and confounding two-year search to solidify the future of the event. The name of the tournament will change to incorporate the new sponsor, whose identity was to be revealed at a news conference today.

Tournament chairman John Sullivan and his crew refused repeated requests Tuesday to discuss details of the sponsorship deal. Invensys last sponsored the Las Vegas tournament in 2002, choosing not to renew its commitment after three years.

The Las Vegas Founders, who operate the pro-am event, failed in their first year of looking for sponsorship and backed the 2003 event with a $4 million purse, but said they could not afford to do so again this year. The situation became bad enough that the PGA tour originally listed the second weekend in October -- traditionally Las Vegas' dates -- as "TBD" on its schedule.

The Founders received a reprieve in March, when Helen Morton, a retired widow from the Bay Area whose late husband loved the event, agreed to underwrite enough costs to keep the tournament alive for three years. That $5 million deal would only renew each year if the Founders had not found title sponsorship, apparently meaning Morton's millions may not be needed.

Also up in the air is the format of the event. The Founders and the tour agreed to scale back the 2004 tournament from five days to four, while keeping a three-course rotation of host course TPC at Summerlin, TPC at the Canyons and Bear's Best. PGA tour officials would surely like to see a two-course format and a reduction in the number of amateurs in each group.

The men's team, fronted by U.S. Amateur champion Ryan Moore, starts the season slotted sixth in the Golfweek rankings. That is quite a jump from the end of the 2003-04 season, when the Rebels finished 16th after a disappointing spring season in which they did not qualify for the NCAA championships for only the second time in the past 16 years.

Florida is the country's top-ranked team heading into the season, but Dwaine Knight's team is capable of competing with anyone, so long as senior Travis Whisman, junior Ryan Keeney and the rest of the Rebels' depth performs up to its potential.

Missy Ringler's squad enters the year ranked No. 16 in the nation after last season's breakout. This becomes the proving year for the Rebels, who need to maintain the momentum they built through the spring and on through the playoffs in order to help establish the program as a national power.

UNLV, which finished the 2003-04 season ranked 14th, loses standout Sunny Oh to the professional ranks. Ringler's squad returns four of last year's top five players, led by sophomore Seema Sadekar, who could be poised for her own breakout year. UCLA enters the season ranked No. 1.

The event, sponsored by the Marriott Las Vegas Area Business Council, will donate proceeds to both Children's Miracle Network and Candlelighters for Childhood Cancer of Southern Nevada.