Las Vegas junior wins prestigious event at Crooked Stick

Drake Harvey prepared for one of the biggest junior golf tournaments of the summer in an interesting way.

Harvey, a junior at Somerset Academy, pulled out a 2013 XBox version of Tiger Woods PGA Tour to get familiar with Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Indiana.

Whatever works.

Harvey played some of his best golf at Crooked Stick, walking away last month with the boys title at the Pete & Alice Dye Junior Invitational after finishing at 4-under 212. That included a second round 66 that put the 17-year-old in control of the tournament.

“It couldn’t have been set up better for me because the greens are small and it’s super tough around the greens,” Harvey said of the course, best known as the location of John Daly’s breakthrough performance in the 1991 PGA Championship. “I think the thing that was working the most was my chipping and my irons, but those are the two best parts of my game anyway.”

Harvey’s win helped him climb to a career-best 78th in the American Junior Golf Association national rankings.

Crooked Stick is just part of a jam-packed summer for Harvey, who won the Nevada state 4A title as a freshman. He played the Western Junior Am in Illinois in June, plays at Torrey Pines this week for the Junior Worlds and then heads to Boulder Creek Golf Club on Friday for the Nevada State Amateur.

He’s also juggling recruiting calls and campus visits, even though college is still two years away. Harvey has already visited Washington and Stanford. He will soon go to Missouri, Brigham Young, UNLV and Arizona.

There are no frontrunners at this point, although he was intrigued by Washington. He also has a history at BYU, where both his father and grandfather played.

That family connection is what got Harvey started in golf at age 4. He started to take it seriously at 9 when he won his first junior tournament. He also is influenced by his uncle, Alex Cejka, whose long professional career includes three majors on the Champions Tour.

When it comes to the Nevada State Amateur, he’s chasing his dad, Billy Harvey, who won the title in both 2000 and 2001. The tournament begins Friday. Drake Harvey will be driving back from San Diego on Thursday night after the week at Torrey Pines.

“Hopefully I have a later tee time, but we’ll see,” Harvey said. “I’ll just play off adrenaline.”

Hall of Fame class

Three individuals and one group were selected as the Las Vegas Golf Hall of Fame’s class of 2024.

Keith Flatt, Kevin Marsh and Jane Schlosser will be joined by the Las Vegas Women’s Golf Association for induction Oct. 12 at TPC Summerlin.

In addition, golf instructor and past inductee Butch Harmon will receive the lifetime achievement award.

Flatt oversees Elite Golf Management and is a longtime Las Vegas professional, instructor, player, course owner and operator. He was featured in the 2015 film “The Squeeze,” focusing on his early life as a hustler and gambler.

Marsh was a successful college golfer at Pepperdine who has numerous high-profile amateur wins on his resume, including the 2005 U.S. Mid-Amateur and the 2010 Champions Cup. He also has many wins in team events as a frequent partner of Hall of Famer Brady Exber.

Schlosser works with junior golfers and has been a volunteer and then executive director of the Southern Nevada Junior Golf Association for more than two decades.

The Las Vegas Women’s Golf Association is a legendary group that has been playing at Las Vegas Golf Club for almost eight decades.

Greg Robertson covers golf for the Review-Journal. Reach him at grobertson@reviewjournal.com.