Friday, Oct. 31, 2003 | 10:17 a.m.
The schedule has been decidedly Southern. The hospitality and comfort have been anything but for the UNLV men's golf team.
The fall slate is bringing the challenges of tough competition and grueling travel, both of which have contributed to an average beginning that is just now improving for the 12th-ranked Rebels. UNLV travels to Myrtle Beach, S.C., for the Collegiate Match Play Championships beginning Nov. 7 to close the first part of its season.
"We've been the East Coast team this year, that's for sure," UNLV coach Dwaine Knight said. "It's been pretty hectic."
After opening the season with a sixth-place finish in Albuquerque at the William H. Tucker Intercollegiate, the Rebels made cross-country trips to Virginia, Georgia and Alabama over the next three weeks. The seemingly constant grind of criss-crossing the nation to play took its toll on UNLV.
The Rebels first posted a tie for seventh in the 15-team field at the Preview Invitational, played on The Homestead Cascades Course in Hot Springs, Va., site of the 2004 NCAA Championships. They followed that with their poorest showing, a 12th-place finish at the Carpet Capital Collegiate in Rocky Face, Ga.
"We kind of struggled a little bit to start out with," Rebels junior Ryan Moore said.
Those tournaments featured some of the country's top teams, including Clemson, Florida, and UCLA. Knight hopes getting used to jet-lagged 5 a.m. wake-up calls to play the best teams in the country will prepare the Rebels for the challenges of their spring season.
"I think the experience, down the line, is going to help us," Knight said.
It may already be paying off for UNLV. The Rebels put together three of their best rounds of the year at the Jerry Pate National Intercollegiate in Birmingham, Ala., to finish in third place at 27-under. Knight could not recall another time when the Rebels finished under par at that tournament.
The Rebels' resurgence coincides with that of Moore, who is finally getting settled after a long summer of amateur competition. Moore went directly from an international trip to compete in the Walker Cup into the UNLV season, which has provided no respite until the past two weeks.
"This right now has been my first real break in I don't know how long," Moore said. "I was just playing catch-up the whole time."
Moore does not feel that the lack of rest affected his play, but he did post his best score of the season -- a 12-under 201 to finish third -- Oct. 13-14 in Alabama. He was backed by junior Travis Whisman, whose 10-under 203 was good for a tie for fifth, by far his top showing of the fall.
Moore is ranked 35th in the nation and Whisman 98th. As the Rebels get a chance to catch their breath, their results will go from good to great, Moore said.
"It's going to be more of a warm-up this year for us," Moore said.
Qualifying scores are unusually low so far, Knight said, indicating that the consistent rounds he wants from J.C. Deacon, Ryan Keeney, Sam Hunt and Andres Gonzales may not be far off.
"Our great teams really showed a lot of that ability to score and score low," Knight said. "This team has started to show that ability."
Between the fall and spring seasons, coaches are limited to a few hours per week of individual work with players by NCAA regulations. UNLV opens its spring season Feb. 18-20 in Honolulu, Hawaii, at the John A. Burns Intercollegiate.
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