Guest columnist Ryan Keeney: Team is rested and ready to play

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 | 9:33 a.m.

UNLV junior golfer Ryan Keeney will be providing a daily diary exclusively for the Las Vegas Sun during the NCAA Golf Championship, chronicling life on and off the course for the Rebels. His first entry covers the time from the team's Friday arrival in Baltimore through Tuesday's practice round at Caves Valley Course in Owings Mills, Md.

Friday was a long day. Traveling to the East Coast is no fun. Saturday, we thought we were only going to play a few holes, nine holes because there was going to be a thunderstorm, according to the freshman over here (as I write this, I'm motioning toward Jarred Texter), but the thunderstorm never came and we played 18 at Columbia Country Club. They hosted the U.S. Junior Championship, so that was pretty nice.

Sunday, we were looking forward to all week. We were playing Jarred's home course, Lancaster Country Club. It was nice, a really nice day and then they did a nice dinner for us. Monday was getting long. If I had it over again, I would have played nine holes Monday and nine holes Tuesday. I'm starting to know the course pretty good, but that back nine was getting just real lazy out there.

The course is in awesome shape. It was nice to get out early Monday. I think we rested for, like, 18 hours by the time we slept for 10 or 11 hours and rested all afternoon. That was big. I don't think a lot of teams are getting to do that. And just nine holes Tuesday feels really chill. The engines are revving and ready to go.

So far, I think the whole week's been advantageous. Every day, we've had crowds following us, just kind of getting us in the tournament vibe. The biggest crowd was at Lancaster. A couple of the holes, we had 30, 40, 50 people following us. People would be a couple of holes over and they'd stop their golf and look over and wonder what's going on.

A lot of it is Ryan Moore. Everyone wants to see Ryan, get a little piece. You know, if you think about it, Ryan is the president of amateur golf. He's the Tiger Woods of amateur golf, the Michael Jordan. If you look at how many amateur golf fans there are, or just golf fans in general, that's going to draw some people to him.

The team's doing great. We're the hottest team in the country. Right now, if you want to ask who has the best five, that's us. There's going to be people following that story, definitely.

The rough is not as long as I expected. If anything, it was longer in the fall (at the Preview tournament) in certain spots. That is kind of surprising. But the greens are going to get real quick and they're already firm. I think it's a great test because you can go out and shoot a round under par or around par, no problem, if you play good solid golf. I think that this is just fair, right in front of you, great championship golf.