Page 36 - Las Vegas Golf & Leisure SPRING 2018

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P R OFILE

Learning

By Example

STORY BY BRIAN HURLBURT

Web.com Tour player Max Marsico grew up in Las Vegas

playing against veteran local amateurs and idolizing the
likes of Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Jimmy Demaret and

other PGA TOUR legends.

here’s no question we’re still living in when the guy is struggling to make a cut, American Junior Golf Association Las Vegas
the age of Tiger Woods, even though there are like 10,000 people watching him. Championship at Angel Park. As a college
The will likely never get back to his It’s nutty, but he’s a legend. But my idols were player for the University of Pennsylvania, he
peak powers. His ongoing impact on profes- the older generation and players like Hogan, won three times. Prior to turning professional
sional golf is ever present. Nearly all young Snead, Palmer, Jimmy Demaret, Gary Player in the summer of 2015, he won the Southern
pros openly discuss how watching Tiger play and Jack Nicklaus. Growing up, my dad read Nevada Golf Association Tour Championship
while they were growing up helped mold a lot of golf books, but we also watched a at Cascata and the SNGA Tournament of
them into the players they are today. lot of Golf Channel. so we would watch old Champions at TPC Las Vegas.
Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf episodes and
Not so for Web.com Tour player and Las other older highlight films.” Marsico appreciates his Las Vegas upbring-
Vegas resident Max Marsico, 26, who was ing and understands the courses he played.
inspired by those legends who inspired Tiger Marsico’s family moved to Las Vegas from Who he played with and against were import-
to greatness. Chicago when he was two, and have been ant to his maturation as a golfer. “I am very
members of TPC Summerlin for two decades. happy I grew up in Las Vegas and learned to
“Pretty much everyone my age grew up As a Southern Nevada junior golfer, he won play here,” Marsico says. “I think there are a
watching Tiger, so it’s hard to say he wasn’t an several local tournaments, including four Ne- lot of good qualities to learning to play in our
influence on me,” Marsico says. “Even now vada State championships and also the 2008 different and tough conditions, including the

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