Par-busting Bobby Pratt, 1954 state amateur champ, feted at luncheon

It was noon on Friday at Cascata, an opulent golf course on the fringe of Boulder City, and the river that cascades through the pro shop could be heard in the banquet room upstairs. It made for tranquil storytelling.

Bob Pratt, the winner of the second Nevada State Amateur in 1954, was waiting for other veteran golfers to finish their rounds when lunch at the State Amateur Reunion Invitational would be served. The former blackjack dealer will be 80 in a couple of months, and he has 80-year-old aches and pains, and so he couldn’t chase the little white ball around, he said.

So instead he told golf stories to a captive audience of one.

My favorite Bob Pratt story was about the 1962 Los Angeles Open.

He was trying to make a go of it on the PGA Tour in what was Jack Nicklaus’ first pro event. Pratt said he, Jack and another guy tied for the last paying place, which paid $100. The next day in the newspaper, it said Jack and the other guy each received $33.33 while Bob Pratt received $33.34.

“I got the 34 (cents). So I was the leading money winner over Jack Nicklaus,” Bob Pratt said with a tap on the knee and the warmest of smiles. “Curtis Strange said years later he didn’t know who got the extra penny.”

So there you have it, Curtis.

When he won the 1954 state amateur, the woods were made of wood, and he was “Bobby Pratt, the par-busting schoolboy.” That is how he was identified in the yellow newspaper clipping he brought to the luncheon.

The story said Bobby Pratt, the lanky 17-year-old Las Vegas High senior, downed veteran Ed Lowery of San Francisco on the 34th hole of match play at Washoe Golf Course in Reno.

Lowery, a major car dealer in the Bay Area, was Francis Ouimet’s 10-year-old caddie when Ouimet won the U.S. Open in 1913 as an amateur, beating Harry Vardon and Ted Ray in a famous playoff.

That seemed to matter to Bob Pratt now, but not so much then. “I was just trying to win, like always,” he said.

As the other veteran golfers were finishing their rounds, they moved the old silver cup with Bob Pratt’s name on it to the front of the banquet room.

Par-busting Bobby Pratt, who went on to play for three NCAA championship teams at the University of Houston, told one last golf tale. It was about when he gave the PGA Tour a whirl, and how one day at the Tucson Open when the putts weren’t dropping, he thought of his kids in Las Vegas — and how being a father to them suddenly seemed way more important than playing golf for $100, or whatever they were paying for finishing in the black numbers that week.

That was the last round of professional golf he would play.

I thought that was a pretty good story, too.

QUERREY ANSWERED

Does Sam Querrey, the American tennis ace who made headlines by upsetting top-seeded and No. 1 in the world Novak Djokovic at Wimbledon, still have ties to Las Vegas?

The answer is probably not.

Querrey’s parents, Mike and Chris, no longer manage the Darling Tennis Center, according to local tennis gurus.

Sam Querrey defeated Kevin Anderson in the 2008 Tennis Channel Open here. His Wikipedia bio lists Las Vegas as his hometown. But the local tennis gurus said that probably is just for tax purposes.

In the ATP media guide, Querrey’s place of residence is listed as Santa Monica, California. A 2011 magazine story said Querrey lived in Henderson when he was a youngster and participated in tennis clinics at Green Valley Athletic Club.

So if you wanted to say his big upset at Wimbledon had its roots here, you probably could win a bar bet, provided you made a pervasive argument and the other guy had a lot to drink.

SUDO RELISHES TITLE

Las Vegas resident Miki Sudo won her third consecutive Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest women’s title on the Fourth of July. After scarfing 38 hot dogs and buns in 2015, she scarfed 38½ this year. She is nothing if not consistent. She is also a prodigious scarfer.

I was directed to her Wikipedia page, where I learned that hot dogs are only one of myriad foods she has scarfed prodigiously.

Meat pies, sausages, tamales, chicken wings, gyozas, tacos, pepperoni rolls, gyros, pierogies, oysters, dumplings, ears of corn, pints of ice cream, gallons of chili, pounds of birthday cake, Twinkies, eggs, shrimp cocktail, gumbo, pasta, pumpkin pie, barbecue ribs, burritos, boysenberry pie, turkey, deep fried asparagus.

Somewhere in there must be a joke about Miki Sudo not not leaving the dinner table before she finished her vegetables.

If the annual hot dog eating contest in Brooklyn, New York, wasn’t enough to digest, there will be more hunger games here Monday night when some of the world’s most ravenous eaters — including Joey “Jaws” Chestnut, who regained the Nathan’s men’s title by swallowing 70 hot dogs in one sitting — will convene for the Hooters Worldwide Wing Eating Contest at the Palms.

The assault on the digestive tract begins poolside at 8 p.m.

ANOTHER VOTE FOR BLACK KNIGHTS

It seems what to name Las Vegas’ new NHL hockey team is like that old Harry Nilsson song: Everybody’s talkin’ about it.

They even were talking about in the broadcast booth at the Reds-Cubs game:

LEN KASPER: Think about the Las Vegas NHL team that’s going to start up in a couple of years. The nickname possibilities. I guess the company that owns it is Black Knights something, so that’s the leader in the clubhouse, the Black Knights.

JIM DESHAIES: Um-hm.

LK: Blackjacks, Cards — I like the 21s. The baseball team (there) is the 51s. The Gamblers …

JD: Skating Showgirls.

LK: (after a pregnant pause): How ’bout the Las Vegas Strip? The Rat Pack? Is that trademarked?

JD: Fighting Newtons?

LK: The Craps? Probably would get only a very small chance.

JD: (chuckling): The Las Vegas Destitute and Downtrodden?

LK: The Hangovers!

JD: No, let’s come back to the legitimate conversation. I do like the Black Knights. And I do like the 21s.

(after a pitch to Willson Contreras)

JD: How about the Bandits? Playin’ the One-Armed Bandits.

LK: Sure! All right, here’s my favorite. Matt on Twitter says the Las Vegas Elvis Impersonators. The logo could just be hair.

JD: Or a cape. Tommy La Stella’s alma mater, Coastal Carolina, winners of the College World Series. Under the guidance of Gary Gilmore …

(Before Jim Deshaies can mention that Coastal Carolina is called the Chanticleers, Tommy La Stella flies out to left.)

LK: That will end the inning … and the nickname conversation … for now.”

MOTHER OF REINVENTION

And finally this week, for those who believe Madonna is the mother of reinvention, may I present Bob Delaney?

Delaney is a former New Jersey state trooper turned Genovese and Bruno crime family infiltrator turned NBA official. He’s currently vice president of NBA Referee Operations.

Apparently he began blowing the whistle at basketball games as a way to relieve the stress of blowing the whistle on mob crime families.

On Tuesday, he’ll talk about this unusual transformation from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Mob Museum downtown. Not to indict the quality of defense played in the NBA Summer League, but this should be way more compelling.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.