Columnist Adam Candee: Moore sizzling, Kurokawa steady in earning honors

Adam Candee

Wednesday, March 9, 2005 | 8:14 a.m.

Adam Candee covers golf for the Sun. Reach him at (702) 259-4085 or by e-mail at candee@lasvegassun.com.

Two golfer of the month awards for UNLV players, two quite different paths to the honors.

Rebels senior Ryan Moore of the men's team and junior Elena Kurokawa of the women's team both claimed Mountain West Conference golfer of the month honors for February, the league announced this week.

Moore, as is now commonplace, burst away from the pack in the final round of the John A. Burns Intercollegiate in Hawaii to win the tournament. He shot an 8-under 64 to finish at 20-under and earn a victory in his first competitive event since November. The win tied Moore with former Rebel Warren Schutte for most career victories with six.

To think, Moore expressed some mild concern before the event about how quickly he could shake off the rust as he settled back into the routine of college golf in his final season. Moore has reached the level in college golf that Tiger Woods once claimed in the pros about three years ago, in that the only player who can beat him when he is playing his best is himself.

Any strong play that the 18th-ranked Rebels can muster will be needed this weekend at the Southern Highlands Collegiate Championship when just about very top team in the country arrives in Las Vegas for what is regarded as arguably the toughest regular-season tournament in college golf. The Preview features the top finishers from the previous year's NCAA Championship playing next year's nationals course, but that is still a fall event and college golf really doesn't begin until the spring.

Kurokawa is off to a nice spring, but a golfer of the month award came as a bit of a surprise, given that the honor is many times reserved for players who win an event or finish very high in multiple tournaments.

She finished eighth at the Wildcat Invitational in Tucson, Ariz., two weeks ago, carding a 3-under 68 in the final round to move up the leaderboard. Her first finish of the spring was a 21st at the Northrop Grunman Regional Challenge in Los Angeles, where Kurokawa performed steadily (75-74-78) but did not overwhelm.

Missy Ringler's team will take any piece of confidence it can get in this uneven season, though, and Kurokawa appears to have picked up some from the award. She fired a two-round total of 2-under 140 Tuesday at the Spartan Invitational in Salinas, Calif., to enter this morning's final round in second place, five strokes off the pace.

Kurokawa's strong rounds paced UNLV into fourth place after 36 holes in a field that includes No. 6 UCLA, which the Rebels trail by seven strokes. Sophomore Seema Sadekar is also playing well, tied for 10th at 4-over.

That bet looked pretty good for the better part of four days until Tiger showed why he was minus-170 by storming back to win. TV ratings soared, columnists gushed and we can only assume that advertisers across the country shrieked with glee while watching the two most marketable faces in the game battle for a tournament.

Let's allow the madness to settle down for a week or so before really taking a closer look at this because it is difficult to see through the dust cloud of hyperbole that Woods and Mickelson kicked up by making golf important in a week that does not include one of the four majors.