RENO — The Reno-Tahoe Open has never been the crown jewel of the PGA Tour during its 12-year existence, but it has managed to survive for more than a decade, which is a feat in itself, especially since it has never had an unencumbered date.

The tournament’s date was changed again for the 2010 event. And while the RTO is not up against a World Golf championship event, this third weekend in July setup may be worse. The RTO is up against the British Open, but given the top players on tour do not perennially come to Reno anyway, that isn’t a big issue.

The bigger problem may be that the RTO now has to compete for the local entertainment dollar. The American Century Championship, featuring celebrities from the sports and entertainment world, hosted annually at Edgewood in Stateline, is also being played this week.

“We’re up here in Carson City for our annual golf trip so we thought we’d come up a couple days early and catch the action here,” said Scott Soracco, who lives in Angels Camp, Calif. but was out to watch action at the RTO Thursday. “We were just up at Tahoe watching the celebrities yesterday. It’s a good time, but if you’re coming out to watch golf, you want to see these guys.”

His father Rick had similar sentiments.

“If I’m going to see golf, I want to see the real pros,” Rick Soracco said. “I swing like Charles Barkley. I don’t want to watch him.”

While the Soraccos admitted that their preference in entertainment golf resides with the PGA Tour, they still made organizers of both the RTO and Tahoe celebrity golf happy because they attended both. They’re likely in the minority there.

Now granted, I didn’t talk to thousands of fans at walking the RTO’s cart paths at Montreux Thursday, but I talked to a handful and the Soracco’s were the only ones who had already been up to the event at the lake or even planned to.

Certainly, that’s fine for the RTO if fans are showing up in droves to watch John Rollins, Steve Pate, Matt Bettencourt and the rest of the field, but that’s not the case. There were more fans at Edgewood Thursday than Montreux.

My guess is the average fan, not the educated die-hard golf guy, just looking to spend a few entertainment dollars, is more likely to watch Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley do anything than a bunch of professional golfers they’ve never heard of tee it up.

There were golf fans Thursday at Montreux, who didn’t like or understand why the two tournaments were set up to conflict.

“It’s dumb. I don’t know why they’re at the same time,” said Sparks resident Scott Jasper, who is in the Nevada Air guard and took advantage of the RTO’s free admission for active military. “I’m sure some people had to make a choice between the two. When you’re drawing from Reno-Sparks, Carson and Tahoe, there are only so many people. Why not have one next week?”

Jasper was not alone in his confusion as to why organizers wound up playing the two events at the same time.

“It makes you wonder,” said Carson City’s Tyson Roser, during his time at Montreux. “I’m not the tournament coordinator of either one, but I’d be concerned. I’d say the people who don’t care as much about the quality of golf will go to the celebrity tourney and those who do will come here.”

At least one fan was downright mad that the two tournaments were being played on the same weekend. Sparks resident Mike Gardner didn’t mince words describing how he felt when first hearing the events would conflict.

“I was pissed off. Can you spell that?” Gardner said. “They are two different events, but they’re splitting their draw.”

RTO officials wanted the earlier date in July this year, but you can bet in a perfect world, they wouldn’t want to compete with the Celebrity Classic. The RTO likely won’t get a chance from the PGA Tour to play on an unencumbered date until it gets a title sponsor. But the pickin’s are slim for businesses looking to title sponsor an event in a down economy. Those interested are less likely to tie their name to an event that is competing for exposure. It’s the old chicken or egg theory.

We’d all be curious to see if the RTO could flourish with an unencumbered date that in turn brought out the top names on the PGA Tour. Unfortunately for northern Nevada golf fans, those days don’t look like they’re coming anytime in the near future.

Dan Eckles is the Sparks Tribune’s sports editor. He can be reached via email at: deckles@dailysparkstribune.com