Guest columnist Ryan Keeney: First day so good, can’t wait for second

Thursday, June 2, 2005 | 9:03 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.

The banquet was long. Long, long speech that everyone agreed wasn't too well done. So we're all just hating life during the banquet, to tell you the truth. The food was OK and it's just something that you've got to do. No one really enjoys banquets.

I don't think we got to bed too early because we were sleeping in until 9:30 a.m., so that was nice, waking up at 9:30 a.m. We got out here nice and early because Jarred (Texter) didn't want to rush; no one really wants to go rush. I think we were here at 10:15 a.m. or so, almost two hours before I was going to tee off.

I just hit some wedges, got some rhythm going, hit some putts, had lunch. I had a really good warm-up, felt good. Some days, that doesn't really mean anything, but some days it does.

On my first hole, I hit a good 3-wood off the first tee and then I almost holed my second shot. I guess it went right by the edge and I didn't even have to mark it. I just tapped it in.

That was a nice start and it showed me that I was feeling good. I think I parred the next 14 holes. I just about parred the rest of the golf course, but I had a strange bogey and a strange birdie back to back.

I didn't think I would make bogey on the par-5 No. 7 and then it's really hard to make a birdie on the eighth hole, par-3, 215 yards, and I birdied that. Those kind of canceled each other out.

Basically, in the run of those long pars was just great play. I've been saying it to everyone -- it's a great golf course, and if you play well, you'll probably shoot par or under, and that's what happened today.

I think with a little easier conditions, I might have shot better than 1-under because I hit some shots that were just hard to gauge with the wind. But I hit some shots that were really looking good and I walked away with par a lot of times from that. And I had some tough up-and-downs because of the wind, too.

I think if I come out and play the same golf in the next round, I think I might even be lower.

Overall, with that wind and stuff, it was just a great day. I'm very happy.

The second day will be an easier round of golf. The greens will be perfect, but they'll be a little faster. But this is perfect.

When I heard that we played late Wednesday and early the next day, it was awesome. We just go get some food, go rest and, boom, we'll be right back on the course. Then, we'll rest in the afternoon and the tournament's halfway over, all of a sudden.

There's all this build-up for the tournament to start, and then, boom, it's halfway over. It's great, I love it.