Columnist Victoria Sun: Rebel golf team seeks some new leading men

Victoria Sun

Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2001 | 11:49 a.m.

Victoria Sun's golf column appears Wednesday. Reach her at 259-4078 or victoria@lasvegassun.com

The term "rebuilding" used to mean something.

But somewhere between "I gave it 110 percent," and "We're just taking it one game at a time," the word "rebuilding," became just another bad sports cliche.

Instead of being a legitimate way for a coach to describe a team that lost a bulk of its players from the previous year, saying "We're in a rebuilding year" now translates to little more than an excuse -- depending on who's talking.

Perhaps that's why UNLV men's golf coach Dwaine Knight hasn't used it to describe the team he has now -- though he'd be well within his rights.

UNLV All-Americans Jeremy Anderson and Michael Kirk graduated in May and the Rebels lost top golfer Adam Scott at the semester break when Scott decided he wanted to compete professionally.

Scott Lander is the only senior back from the team that won the Mountain West championship and finished sixth in the NCAA Tournament, and is the only player left from UNLV's 1998 NCAA championship team.

Not surprisingly, the Rebels struggled the rest of the fall season after finishing second at the Tucker Intercollegiate in Albuquerque, N.M.

"We were in a process of trying to put a lot of new people in the program, getting them used to what we do," Knight said. "We knew we have some talent, but we didn't know who we could count on.

"We started out solid at the Tucker, then played poorly for the heart of the fall. We had some good rounds, but we didn't have any consistency as far as three rounds so that certainly hurt us."

All the lumps the young Rebels took in the fall may help salvage the rest of the spring season.

At the John Burns Intercollegiate in Honolulu, freshman James Oh posted rounds of 68, 67 and 71 to lead the Rebels to a third-place finish. Oh finished fourth individually and Lander was next for the Rebels in seventh place.

As a team, UNLV shot three consecutive sub-par rounds for the first time since September, including a very encouraging 13-under the second of competition.

"I thought we played a real solid tournament in Hawaii," Knight said. "James has been the pivotal man throughout the year.

"He led us there."

Lander remains the team's only link to the glorious past, but Oh represents a very promising future.

Knight mentions the fact that almost all of the great Rebel golf teams in the 1990s had at least one individual standout. (Individual national champion Warren Schutte and former All-Americans Chris Riley, Ed Fryatt and Ted Oh come to mind.)

James Oh could very well be next.

"I really thought he would be a factor right off the bat," Knight said. "He's an outstanding player and has a lot of golf savvy. He can manage it in bad times and good times and not everybody is that way.

"As he becomes stronger and his confidence grows, I think he can step into the winner's circle."

One day soon, the Rebels may as well.