Columnist Peter Benton: Team’s talents fit perfectly at Foothills Invite

Peter Benton

Wednesday, May 25, 2005 | 9:38 a.m.

Peter Benton's golf column appears Wednesday.

The pride of the Foothills Invitational is a two-man low net and low gross tournament, which is played annually over California's challenging Glendora Country Club. Because of the popularity of this event the field has had to be limited to 90 teams, with competitors coming from all corners of the country.

What made the staging of the recent 34th annual outing so memorable -- as far as Las Vegas golfers are concerned -- is that two local players waltzed away with the lowest overall net score. Their 284 in the alternate shot/Scotch foursome/combined aggregate event was one of the lowest ever recorded. This came as a complete surprise, not only to our two relatively obscure victors but also to all other competitors.

The two winners, Peter Segel and Bob Frusco, are average club players who, even when playing individually in local events, fail to make anyone nervous. What is so surprising about these two affable fellows is that, like Mutt and Jeff, they are complete opposites both on and off the golf course.

Segel is cavalier, gregarious and along with his wife Bobbie, enjoys and lives life to the hilt. And although as straight as an arrow with both his woods and irons, he lacks distance.

Naturally, this equates to playing -- on a really good day -- bogey golf. Once on the green, though, he can be positively awesome.

Frusco, on the other hand, with his laid-back personality and sardonic wit, plays a completely different game. He is very long off the tee, but rarely on the fairway.

Because of this problem, he has over the years developed survival skills in the form of anamazing short game.

The bottom line is these two popular locals ham-and-egged it to perfection in winning a prestigious tournament against a top-class field, and no one can take that away.

The Pride of the Foothills Invitational may not have had the luster, drama and prize money of Steve Bartkowski's $6.4 million Big Stakes Golf Tournament, but to our two representatives it was not only a "major," but also a terrific and memorable victory.

After two events in the season-long Men's Interclub Tournament, the leading team is that from TPC Summerlin with 460 points. Spanish Trail follows closely with 456 and in third spot with 449 is Canyon Gate. Sharing fourth with 439 points apiece are the Anthem Country Club and SouthShore Golf Club. Sixth spot is held by the L.V. Country Club with 432, Red Rock is next with 425 and rounding out the teams is DragonRidge with 417 points.

Seven amateurs along with one professional constitute a team, with the seven top scores in the Stableford format making up the team score.