Rich history of golf in Nevada begins and ends with Vegas

By Ron Kantowski

Wednesday, July 1, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Until Monday the Las Vegas Golf Hall of Fame was known as the Southern Nevada Golf Hall of Fame. Before that, according to Jack Sheehan, the toastmaster general of Las Vegas golf, it was called the Nevada Golf Hall of Fame. And like holing out from those pot bunkers at The Old Course at St. Andrews, you could only imagine it as there wasn’t a hall of fame building to speak of.

“We didn’t have anybody from Reno or Tahoe in the damn thing anyway,” said Sheehan, who not only emceed the hall of fame ceremony Monday but is part of this year’s class that includes longtime Las Vegas teaching pro Jimmie Bullard, UNLV golf coach Dwaine Knight and Edward Fryatt, one of Knight’s former All-Americans.

The inductees and other luminaries with impressive suntans did the honors of pulling the veil off the new hall of fame exhibit at Las Vegas National Golf Club.

There was a round of applause, after which practically everybody rushed out the door to singe their eyebrows and get in a few last putts on the practice green. There was a tournament held in conjunction with the hall of fame announcement leaving Knight (who only plays golf in the 70s) and I to take in the exhibit by our lonesomes.

So this is how it felt to be Jean Van de Velde walking to the parking lot at Carnoustie after blowing a three-shot lead on the 72nd hole of the British Open, I thought.

“Now we have a physical hall of fame to go with what before was just a really nice honor,” Sheehan said.

The hall exhibit features a modest memorabilia collection, including a set of persimmon woods and an ancient putter that look as if they once belonged to Bobby Jones or Walter Hagen. I wanted to tell Sheehan that it was really nice of him to donate the clubs he played with at the University of Oregon but he was already on the practice green, singeing his eyebrows.

Other tangible evidence of Las Vegas’ long and storied golf history on display in the glass cases designed by Las Vegas’ Cypress Architecture and paid for in large part by a gift from the Cashman family include a signed score card from Robert Gamez’s record-setting 62 at Painted Desert Golf Club in the Nevada Open and another from the fifth and final round of Tiger Woods’ first PGA Tour victory — the 1996 Las Vegas Invitational.

If you look closely you can see that somebody had changed a 4 on the No. 8 hole at TPC Summerlin to a 3. Apparently, in his bag that day Tiger wasn’t carrying an eraser along with his 14 clubs and golf’s future.

There is a honor roll of Las Vegas PGA champions past and present which serves to remind that our ancient past as a tour stop was more remarkable than our recent one, Justin Timberlake’s argyle sweater and Sexy Back (Nine) notwithstanding.

For instance, did you know that during a five-year stretch in the 1960s our PGA event was won by Arnold Palmer three times and Jack Nicklaus twice?

Compare that with the past five years when the name on the big check was paid to the order of Andre Stolz, Wes Short Jr., Troy Matteson, George McNeill and Marc Turnesa and see if you don’t agree.

But easily the most the fascinating feature of the hall of fame exhibit, which is portable and can be transported to wherever golf is being played or talked about around here, is a timeline highlighting important events and those responsible for them in words and photographs.

A photo of a reed-like Frank Sinatra at the 1953 Tournament of Champions at the old Desert Inn is worth the price of admission alone, if there was one. The exhibit, connected to the Las Vegas National Golf Club pro shop, is free and open to the public during normal golfing hours or when Van de Velde’s finished on No. 18, whichever comes first.

The timeline also includes a list of golf course openings in Las Vegas. Did you know there were 29 that began collecting greens fees during the golf course boon from 1995 to 2003 but none since?

“This is the first step to creating a monument to golf in Las Vegas,” said Brian Hurlburt, president of the Las Vegas Golf Hall of fame committee.

In other words, let those guys in Reno and Lake Tahoe build their own exhibit.