2011 Las Vegas Classic Club Champion
I recently played the TRGA Las Vegas Classic over the weekend of January 15 & 16 2011. What a fun event!!!
The rules are simple- a player may only use persimmon woods with steel shafts and irons from pre 1980 also with steel shafts. Sand iron with a 56 degree loft is the highest lofted club and a traditional old style putter such as a bulls eye or blade must be used.
The rules of play for TRGA events are designed to speed up play and are based on rules of golf that have been stricken from the rule book over the years and have unfortunately been replaced with 500 pages of too much information. Golf should be simple.
You hit the ball- you find it- you play it again from where it lies....if a situation arises where you can't hit your ball there is a stock standard stroke and distance procedure for dropping the ball back into play
(dropping it over your shoulder) and you move on from there, speeding up play and keeping the rules to a bare minimum so all players can abide by them keeping the competition fair to all with no unnecessary advantage being given.
The 2011 TRGA Classic Club Las Vegas Classic was again played at The Las Vegas National Golf Club.
A course steeped in history from the PGA events held there starting in 1960. The winners list at Las Vegas National reads like a whos who of golf.
Jack Nicklaus- Lee Trevino- Billy Casper- Tony Lema- Doug Sanders- Al Geiberger- Lanny Wadkins- John Mahaffey. an incredible list of victors.
Alas, the technology invasion in golf rendered this little masterpiece of a golf course futile in it's defence against the bomb and gouge style of golf that we see today. The last time a round of the Las Vegas Invitational was played there was 1996 and yet again another terrific course is rendered useless for the world of golf.
It was with this fact in mind that the TRGA Las Vegas Classic was started in 2009.
The TRGA had the foresight to bring a unique tournament back to a classic old golf course complete with persimmon woods and older v groove iron heads. When the course was designed over 60 years ago every tree was positioned perfectly to catch and block an off line drive. Bunkers were strategically placed to make the player shape his tee shots around or away from the trouble areas. Small well guarded greens were designed to reward the well struck approach and give some difficulty to the next stroke if the task was not well executed. With no extra land available at LV National the course is now as it will be forever.
In the Classic Club Event we played the course as it was designed to be played. Positioning with the tee shot was paramount Good shots were generally rewarded and poorer struck shots were sometimes given the penalty they deserved.
It was a tonne of fun to catch up with some people and as fate would have it I was paired with my coach John 'Lagpressure' Erickson in both the first and final round.
It was great fun to play with John again and I was also fortunate to come out this years victor in the event shooting 69-74 to scrape in by two strokes from John who fired a 70-75.
This is golf at it's finest... precision ball striking was necessary to plot your way around the course. The long irons were needed into many par 4 holes and the Par 5 holes were only reachable with two mighty shots with danger lurking for an ill struck persimmon 3 wood second shot.
Hopefully with ongoing commitment from others who are also mystified at the direction golf has taken over the past 10-15 years, the event can grow and grow and possibly other classic courses that have become extinct to tournament golf through no fault of their own, can be added to the rotation for a Persimmon Tour of approximately 10-15 events.
Now that would really be fun......
For more information visit the TRGA website, www.traditionalrulesofgolf.org