Monday, March 15, 2004 | 9:24 a.m.
If this is home sweet home, the UNLV men's golf team will gladly pack its bags for a while.
The Rebels completed a mostly dismal three days at the Southern Highlands Collegiate Championship with an 8-over final round Sunday, finishing in a distant eighth-place tie with Arizona and Wake Forest.
Arizona State closed at 16-under to hold off Florida by two strokes for the team championship on a final day that saw significantly higher scoring than the previous two. Clemson came in third at 5-under.
Florida's Camilo Villegas fired a 3-under 69 in the closing round to overtake Wake Forest's Bill Haas for the individual crown at 11-under. Haas closed with a 1-under 71. UNLV junior Ryan Moore did not defend his title in the tournament, but put together three strong rounds of 69 to finish in third place at 9-under.
Moore came to his final hole with a chance to tie Villegas at 11-under, but ended up in a fairway bunker and then hit the lip as he tried to blast out. He bogeyed the hole to finish two strokes off the lead.
UNLV coach Dwaine Knight complimented Moore for taking the chance.
"It was certainly worth a try," Knight said.
Rebels junior Travis Whisman also had a strong tournament, claiming 14th place with a total score of 3-under. Beyond Moore and Whisman, though, UNLV efforted to play well in excellent scoring conditions on its home turf. That came as a surprise and a disappointment to Knight.
"It was not a good tournament for us as a team," Knight said. "We didn't have any consistency in our depth."
The next highest placing Rebels were sophomore Andres Gonzalez and freshman Matt Edwards, a Coronado High School graduate. Both shot 13-over to finish tie for 61st in the field of 76. Sophomore Ryan Keeney struggled to a 19-over to finish 72nd.
Knight feels that playing at home might actually have done more to unnerve his players than it did to help them.
"The one time you do play at home, you want to play well," Knight said. "I'm sure they pressed a little bit. There's probably a little more pressure at home to do well."
The pressure also increased with the gorgeous weather and receptive course at Southern Highlands. As some of the nation's finest college golf teams began to sink deeper into red numbers, UNLV felt more than the 83-degree heat under its collar.
"When they saw the low scores, they kind of panicked a little bit," Knight said. "I thought we pushed the panic button a little bit and tried to force things."
The poor effort was the first for the Rebels in quite a while. Knight liked the way his team had played in three consecutive tournaments, including a second-place finish to open the spring season at the John A. Burns Intercollegiate in Hawaii. He complimented Moore and Whisman for their good showings, but challenged the remainder of his roster to improve.
"We've got leadership at the top starting to really play well," Knight said. "We've just got to give them some support."
Coming into the tournament, Knight focused on hitting greens on par 3s as the area in which he wanted to see improvement. Instead, his players struggled to hit greens on holes of any length.
"The biggest thing is we're not hitting greens," Knight said. "That will be an emphasis the next couple of weeks. I'm going to really work hard with that."
There is not much time to work on anything, though, as the Rebels leave Wednesday for the Hall of Fame Invitational in Houston, which begins Friday.
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