Nevada State Am champ Daren Johnson looks to make history

Defending champion Daren Johnson appreciates the history of the Nevada State Amateur and hopes to become the seventh golfer to win back-to-back titles. The three-day tournament was first played in 1953 and begins Monday at TPC Summerlin.

To be successful, Johnson will have to beat a deep and talented field of the state’s top amateurs.

“It was such a huge win, the biggest of my career,” Johnson said about his four-shot victory at Genoa Lakes Golf Club in Northern Nevada. “It is very near and dear to my heart so it meant a lot. Now to be a Nevada guy, it’s a cool thing to be able to say that I am the Nevada State Amateur champion. That’s a very prestigious title and something I want to be able to say for another year.”

Johnson, 30, is a Southern California native, but moved to Laughlin last year after securing his MBA from Holy Names University in San Francisco, where he was golf team captain and the school’s 2009 male athlete of the year. He also served as an assistant coach while attending graduate school.

Johnson followed his state victory by winning the Southern Nevada Golf Association Tournament of Champions at Bear’s Best Las Vegas in January. He is currently ranked sixth in the SNGA player of the year standings.

For the second time, the state amateur is being played at TPC Summerlin, the host course of the PGA Tour’s Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. Tournament organizers said the course will be set up in similar conditions to what the tour pros face in November.

“There’s a lot excitement this year and we are playing a great venue,” Nevada State Amateur organizing committee member Tony Caiazzo said. “It’s a deep field with great players in what I consider to be the most prestigious amateur event we offer in the state.”

Among the notables scheduled to play are Brady Exber, two-time champion and 2014 British Senior Amateur champion; Kevin Marsh, 2012 California State Amateur champion and 2005 U.S. Mid-Amateur champion; Edward Fryatt, 1992 champion and three-time defending SNGA player of the year; J.J. Gresco, a rising UNLV sophomore; and Greg Horodesky, 2013 champion.