UNLV golfers open season in Hawaii

Adam Candee

Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2004 | 9:40 a.m.

The UNLV men's golf team is living out one heck of a guy's fantasy vacation this week in Hawaii, where spectacular courses are as common as flower leis and fish dinners.

"We've really just played golf," Rebels coach Dwaine Knight said. "It's been pretty much play golf, get up, eat and go back out again and play. We haven't really had a chance to enjoy the beach."

That's the thing with the sand and stuff, right? When you are spending your days playing at courses like Turtle Bay, Koolau and Leilehua, does it really even matter?

The Rebels open their spring season Wednesday when the John A. Burns Intercollegiate gets under way in Honolulu. The three-day event is UNLV's annual tune-up event for its own home tournament, the Las Vegas Collegiate, on March 12.

Ranked 10th in the nation by Golfweek, the Rebels will use the tournament to shake the winter doldrums, not having played an event since placing second at the Hooters Collegiate Match Play in early November.

"It's a good opportunity to kind of get the rust off," Knight said.

That rust has been tough to shake in the unseasonably cool and windy weather that hung over Las Vegas for much of the past month.

"The conditions just haven't been ideal at home yet," Knight said. "Since they've come back (for school), the weather's been difficult. Even-par, or one or two-under has been a good score for us."

And really, where better to get away from 6-irons sending bees up through your hands than Hawaii. The Rebels left town Saturday for a trip that Knight sees as one of the most vital on the UNLV schedule for reasons that extend well beyond the course.

"Hawaii does a lot of things for us," Knight said. "It's very good for recruiting and we get to come over here and spend quality time together."

Ryan Moore, Travis Whisman, Ryan Keeney, J.C. Deacon and Andres Gonzalez made the trip to Hawaii for UNLV. Moore, who is the 10th-ranked player in Division I golf, and Whisman closed the fall slate on a high note at the match play event.

Moore won all four of his matches to lead the Rebels' charge, while Whisman lost just one match to Clemson's Matt Hendrix. Keeney split four matches, and even his two losses were 1-up defeats to defending NCAA individual champion Alejandro Canizares of Arizona State and Brett Stegmaier of Florida.

The Rebels' strong showing in match play, coupled with the team's third-place finish at the Jerry Pate National Intercollegiate in Alabama three weeks earlier, closed an initially average fall season on an upswing.

"Getting to the championship round was really good for the guys," Knight said. "It definitely raised their confidence and set their goals higher."

The goal at UNLV is always the NCAA championships, scheduled this year for The Homestead Cascades Course in Hot Springs, Va., from June 1-4. The Rebels will have a familiarity advantage in qualifying for nationals this season, as both the Mountain West Conference championships and NCAA West Region tournament will be at Sunriver Golf Club in Sunriver, Ore.

The Rebels next play in their own tournament at Southern Highlands from March 12-14.