Fans will feel changes at Frys.com tournament

Saturday, Oct. 6, 2007 | 1:41 a.m.

Who: Frys.com Open

When: Thursday to Sunday

Where: TPC Summerlin, TPC Canyons

Tickets: $5 to $100; www.thefrysopen.com

An abundance of maroon fezzes will be only one of the changes greeting golf fans who take in next week's Frys.com Open PGA Tour event in Summerlin.

Shriners Hospitals for Children has replaced the Las Vegas Founders Club as the charitable host organization of Las Vegas' annual PGA Tour stop, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary, and has made a five-year financial commitment to keep the tournament afloat in Las Vegas.

Gary Davis, the new tournament chairman, has said making the tournament "spectator-friendly" is his group's primary goal as it attempts to breath e new life into an event that has struggled to draw fans in recent years.

The first change fans are likely to notice will be how they get to the two courses where the tournament will played. Instead of parking at the Suncoast Hotel and Casino and taking shuttle buses to the Tournament Players Club at Summerlin (Thursday through Sunday) or TPC Canyons (Thursday and Friday), spectators will park on city-owned land near Durango Drive at Vegas Drive . Shuttle buses will take fans the short distance to and from the courses .

Ian Knight, the first-year tournament director, identified parking as one of his biggest challenges when he took the job and said he thinks securing the use of the parking lot closer to the TPC at Summerlin is a good first step in addressing that concern.

"We'll have 25 shuttle buses running all the time," he said. "I don't know how many they had in the past, but we'll have a lot of buses available , and they'll be running constantly.

"The ride is 1.9 miles to TPC Summerlin , so it should take no time at all."

Another adjustment spectators will have to make is to not getting something - tickets - for nothing. Knight said tournament officials will not continue the Founders Club's practice of distributing free passes to the event.

"In the past, the previous host organization had done deals where they put ads in the paper for free tickets provided by certain partners - we're not going to do that this year," he said. "We do know there's a little bit of a challenge there because a lot of people will expect that coupon to pop up in the newspaper soon and we're not going to do that."

Single-day passes start at $5 for adults ; children 12 and younger get in free with a paying adult.

Perhaps the biggest change greeting spectators at the TPC Summerlin will be the new 22,000-square-foot food and entertainment pavilion between the 17th and 18th holes. The Hill will offer VIP-style hospitality to those willing to pay $15 (which includes a single-day ticket to the tournament). Spectators who gain admission with a $5 ticket can get into The Hill by purchasing a $10 pass.

"The big question everybody always asks is, 'What's new, what's different this year ? ' and definitely it's The Hill and all the entertainment around that," Knight said.

Featuring several bars and food from some of the city's most popular restaurants, The Hill will have more than 30 large-screen televisions so fans can keep track of the baseball playoffs and college and pro football games in addition to the golf tournament.

"Everybody who has called us up has said they've heard a buzz about it around town," Knight said of The Hill.

"People hear (the tournament) is really going to be different this year and want to know about The Hill. The reaction has been fantastic."