Tiger Woods advises UNLV golfer after chance Masters meeting

You never know unless you ask.

Last week when Aaron Jarvis and amateur partner James Pio were playing a practice round at the Masters, Jarvis did a double take when Tiger Woods jumped ahead of them on the 10th tee. At the 11th tee, Jarvis asked Woods if he and Pio could join him.

Woods smiled and politely said that he preferred to play alone.

“There’s no better rejection than from Tiger,” the UNLV freshman said Thursday as he prepared for a slightly less monumental tournament — Arizona State’s The Thunderbird at Papago Golf Course in Phoenix. “But I got to speak to him after the round, which was pretty cool.

“On the putting green, it was just me and him for about 10 minutes. We just started talking about things … advice about my game, playing with the pros, dealing with the crowd, just going out there and enjoying every moment.”

Jarvis, who qualified for the Masters and the British Open by winning the Latin American Amateur in the Dominican Republic in January, nearly made a hole-in-one on venerable Augusta National’s Amen Corner. His tee shot on No. 12 landed about a foot from the hole.

“The 19-year-old … for whom 1988 is ancient history … nearly had the first ace since that year here at the 12th,” Jim Nantz told the millions watching on TV.

Nantz talked loudly to be heard over a gallery that Jarvis had whipped up with a smile and an enthusiastic wave of his hand.

Though he didn’t come close to making the cut, the UNLV freshman from the Cayman Islands south of Cuba —where there are just two golf courses, and one is only nine holes — was enjoying every moment of playing in the Masters.

Just as Tiger had told him to.

Around the horn

■ File this under it’s the thought that counts.

A young fan who asked Nick Suzuki of the Montreal Canadiens for a selfie and a puck suffered a bloody lip when the latter was tossed to him by the former Golden Knights top draft pick before last Saturday’s game against the host Toronto Maple Leafs and he failed to catch it.

There were a few tears, so Suzuki gave the youngster one of his sticks — but that turned out to be a bummer, too, when the boy and his father were told if they wanted to keep Nick’s stick, they would have to leave the game per Scotiabank Arena rules, which consider keepsake hockey sticks a potential weapon.

Maple Leafs management later said they offered to claim-check the stick. But by then the youngster and his dad had left the building.

■ Former Centennial High baseball player and current USA Baseball Women’s National Team member Denae Benites is an instructor at this weekend’s Trailblazer Series for girls at the Jackie Robinson Training Complex in Vero Beach, Florida.

One of the guest speakers is former All-American Girls Professional Baseball League player Maybelle Blair, 95, who was portrayed by Madonna in the movie “A League of Their Own.”

■ Speaking of Centennial, the school’s powerhouse girls basketball team lost 63-30 to even bigger powerhouse Sidwell Friends of Washington D.C., last weekend in a four-team invitational in Florida before the latter side was crowned MaxPreps national champion.

■ Former MLB players Chasen Bradford (Silverado High) and Johnny Field (Bishop Gorman) are trying to recapture the magic with the High Point Rockers of the independent Atlantic League. Former 51s pitching coach (and two-time MLB 20-game winner) Frank Viola is High Point’s pitching coach.

■ Not everybody at the World Men’s Curling Championships at Orleans Arena was cheering for Canada last weekend.

A man with longish gray hair and a rock star persona watched the title match with a Swedish flag draped in front of his seat and posed for photos with the gold-medal winners from his homeland. Mikkey Dee is the drummer for Scorpions, whose Zappos Theater residency ends this weekend.

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The Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw was working on a perfect game Wednesday when he was yanked at the end of seven innings after throwing 80 pitches against the Twins.

In a 1965, 10-inning no-hitter, the Reds’ Jim Maloney threw a staggering 187 pitches against the Cubs and never once thought about being removed for a relief pitcher.

Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.