Sunday, March 23, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
AS GOOD as UNLV is in a number of collegiate sports, year in and year out the Rebels are truly great in only one.
In fact, it was simply a matter of fortune that kept the UNLV golf team from winning the national championship last year. And this year coach Dwaine Knight's team is ranked No. 1 and has performed like a No. 1 team when the stakes are highest.
The Rebels would have finished first, and not second, a year ago if it weren't for that one variable no golfer can control: blind luck.
A five-man team playing a four-round tournament can gain and lose a number of strokes for a variety of reasons, yet, for all practical purposes, the NCAA Championship in 1996 was decided by the random carom of two poorly struck balls by the eventual titlists, Arizona State. On the water-protected 16th hole at The Honors Course near Chattanooga, Tenn., where the finals were being contested, not one but two ASU players hit shots that appeared destined for the proverbial watery grave. Yet -- and here's where the tournament was actually decided -- both of the shots struck protruding boulders in the pond and both ricocheted to safer ground.
Innocently victimized, UNLV finished three stokes behind the Sun Devils.
Since that day last May, the Rebels lost two All-American-caliber players to graduation. Yet here they are again, knocking on the championship door with a team that has an abundance of talent, if not recognizable names.
"If you knock enough times, the bounce will eventually go your way," Knight said before leaving for Austin, Texas, and the Morris Williams Intercollegiate that begins Monday. "If you don't get there, you don't have a chance to get the bounces."
Maybe they'll get the bounces this year.
"I like our chances," Knight said. "Every time we've had a chance to win a big tournament, we've been right there."
UNLV has two tournament victories and twice has finished one stroke out of a playoff. The Rebels have been in the top five in five of the eight events they've entered.
This could be the year.
"We've had a lot of success and we've lived with high expectations," Knight said. "We've been No. 1 for five months, and that's a long time when someone's always taking shots at you.
"But being No. 1 has been an advantage for us. The guys have had to go places and be interviewed and answer questions about it. Yet they've still been able to keep their focus."
Focus may be an issue for two other prominent teams, ASU and Florida. The former has four starters back from its national championship team, while the latter has three big-name players who have been playing some PGA Tour events as invited amateurs. Yet neither has been the equal of UNLV -- or Oklahoma State -- on the course this year.
"Florida is capable of putting up some great numbers," Knight said. "But we've played them three times when both teams had all their members, and we won twice."
Take a look at this Florida lineup of stars (and familiar names): Steve Scott, Robert Floyd, Josh McCumber. Scott was second to Tiger Woods in the match-play final of the '96 U.S. Amateur. Floyd, the son of longtime pro golf star Raymond Floyd, lost to Scott in the U.S. Amateur semifinals and is accomplished enough to have been only four shots off the Saturday morning lead at the PGA Tour's Doral Invitational two weeks ago. And McCumber is the nephew of another PGA Tour star, Mark McCumber.
On paper, Florida looks stronger than UNLV. But -- guess what? -- the game's not played on paper.
"I've got a lot of faith in this team," Knight said. "They've played against some great fields on courses that presented severe tests, and any time there's been a lot of recognition on the line the guys have played really well."
Knight has his own stars -- Ted Oh (73.11 stroke average), Gilberto Morales (73.93), Mike Ruiz (73.55) and Bill Lunde (73.60) -- plus extremely good depth with players like Charley Hoffman (74.34), Mike Vance (74.87) and Jeremy Anderson (73.71).
"We've had to replace some big players, and the guys have stepped up and done it," Knight said. "That's really the impressive thing about this team. We've taken the continuity we had and added players who've improved their games.
"We're starting to look pretty good on paper, too."
archive
