Wes Weston claims PGA chapter championship

PGA of America professional Wes Weston shot 1-under 141 at TPC Las Vegas last week to win the 2019 Southwest Section, Southern Nevada Chapter Championship by three shots over Las Vegas Paiute’s Tom Fischer. Anthem’s Travis Long was third.

Weston, 59, has always been recognized as one of the chapter’s top players.

“It’s always fun to win as an older player and to also beat Travis (Long) because he seems to always get me,” said Weston, who also won the championship several times in his younger days and was chapter player of the year multiple times.

SouthShore’s Tom Sweeney won the assistant professional division.

Weston also made the final four of the chapter’s prestigious match play championship along with Jason Edmiston (Las Vegas Country Club), Jim Delaney (Southern Highlands) and Troy Helseth (Anthem).

Helseth is on the way to his fifth straight player of the year award while Fischer has a substantial lead for senior player of the year.

Western States hits Las Vegas

Juniors from Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington and Nevada compete Wednesday through Friday at Las Vegas Golf Club in the annual Western States Junior Golf Association 39th Alan Bennett Annual Junior Golf Championships. The Las Vegas tournament director is teaching professional Jim Hart.

One male and female finisher will each qualify for the 2020 Junior PGA Championship to be held at PGA Golf Club in Port St. Lucie, Florida. Alumni of the association have gone on to play college and professional golf and used the game as a stepping stone to prosperous careers in and out of golf.

Western’s Jared Smith, the Nevada 3A state champion, headlines the tournament’s college division.

The tournament is operated by the historic Western States Golf Association, a predominantly African-American golf association that was founded in 1954 by several regional golf associations including the Bay Area Golf Club in San Francisco and the Desert Mashie Golf Club in Phoenix.

Southern Nevada PGA chapter president Kendall Murphy grew up playing in WSJGA tournaments including traveling to Las Vegas for the tournament.

“Western States Junior Golf was my introduction into competition and travel golf,” Murphy said. “During my days playing in WSJGA events, I learned how to respect the game of golf and how to compete at a high level. WSJGA also allowed me to play with other juniors from minority backgrounds, which was not a common occurrence during my junior and high school golfing days and that made it special.”

Senior champs

Kelly Knievel, son of daredevil Evel Knievel, won the Nevada State Senior championship division played at Reflection Bay. Also winning divisions were Jim LiCausi (net), Rich Morrison (silver) and Ken Perry (silver net).

TPC shots of a lifetime

Club member Tom Land made a double eagle on the par 5, 16th hole at TPC Summerlin on Saturday, July 6. He then backed that epic shot up with an ace on the par 3, 5th hole a week later. He hit driver, 8-iron for the double eagle and knocked in a 7-iron from 163 yards for the hole in one.

The golf notebook appears Wednesdays. Freelance writer Brian Hurlburt is a two-time author who has covered golf in Las Vegas for more than two decades. He can be reached at bhurlburt5@gmail.com or @LVGolfInsider.