Three former Rebels earn spots at Olympia Fields

Tuesday, June 3, 2003 | 10 a.m.

Former UNLV golfer Bill Lunde earned a spot in the U.S. Open next week by winning the 36-hole sectional qualifier Monday at El Caballero Country Club in Tarzana, Calif. He was one of several golfers with local ties who earned spots in the men's national championship.

Sectional qualifiers were played at eight sites Monday. Additional qualifying takes place today at five sites. Forty-eight players will be added to the field.

Lunde toured the El Caballero course in 67-68--135 to win by three strokes over fellow qualifiers Rick Reinsberg of San Francisco, Alan Arvidson of Scottsdale, Ariz., and another ex-UNLV star, Warren Schutte.

Craig Barlow, a Henderson resident and Basic High graduate, just missed qualifying at Tarzana. He finished two shots off the pace and earned alternate status. Also at Tarzana, 16-year-old Brad Thompson, a junior at Las Vegas High, failed to qualify.

Elsewhere, UNLV grad Chad Campbell was the sole qualifier to emerge from the event at Kirtland Country Club in Cleveland. He shot 72-67--139 to win by five strokes.

Las Vegas resident Dean Wilson earned his U.S. Open invitation at Columbus, Ohio. Two weeks after being grouped with LPGA star Annika Sorenstam in her foray onto the PGA Tour, Wilson shot 67-69--136 to join 19 other golfers who qualified at that sectional.

The Columbus qualifier was by far the largest event of the day with 101 golfers -- many of them PGA Tour players who had just completed this past weekend's Memorial Tournament -- attempting to win spots in next week's U.S. Open at Olympia Fields in Illinois.

Stewart Cink won the Columbus qualifier. Fellow PGA Tour pros Mark Calcavecchia, Jesper Parnevik and Bob Tway also qualified at Columbus.

Among the other highlights of the day:

Trip Kuehne, runner-up to Tiger Woods in the 1994 U.S. Amateur, broke the course record at Stonebridge Ranch in McKinney, Texas, with a 10-under-par 62 and went on to earn a berth.

One of the two spots at Columbine Country Club in Littleton, Colo., went to 16-year-old Tom Glissmeyer.

Duffy Waldorf failed to qualify at Tarzana.

UNLV golfer Ryan Moore, just back from the NCAA championships in Stillwater, Okla., missed out in the qualifier at Auburn, Wash. Moore was in the field for the 2003 Masters.