UNLV golf team aims for history

The UNLV golf team is in position to make history, if it can win the final three tournaments of the season, including the season-ending NCAA Championships.

The Rebels have won five tournaments this season, three shy of the school record, and are attempting to become the first team since the 1984-85 University of Houston squad to win back-to-back national championships.

But head coach Dwaine Knight isn't greedy.

"We're chasing a little history as far as our team is concerned; the fact that we could have eight wins and the fact that we could win back-to-back national titles," Knight said. "We would be the only team in the '90s to win back-to-back national championships and we're the only team that has a chance to do that.

"We'll have a shot at (eight wins) ... but if we only have six wins and (the sixth) is the national championship, that would still be all right."

UNLV earned its fifth win of the season by coming from behind to capture the BellSouth Yellow Pages Intercollegiate Saturday in North Carolina. The Rebels will be off until the Western Athletic Conference Championships May 3-5 at Poppy Hills Golf Course in Pebble Beach, Calif.

Last year, the Rebels ended the regular season by winning the BellSouth tournament and eventually captured their first national championship.

This year's team, Knight said, is starting to remind him of last year's championship squad.

"I think the one thing we showed this year is the ability to win, which is exactly what happened with last year's team toward the end," Knight said. "We have won some awfully big tournaments this year -- it seems like we have kind of geared ourselves toward certain tournaments and that has been gratifying.

"I think the other thing is one of our big goals this year was to get in the hunt and try to be competitive in as many tournaments as we could."

The Rebels have been in contention in every tournament they have played since the Jerry Pate National Intercollegiate in Alabama in October (a tournament in which UNLV finished second). The Rebels have won five of the past seven tournaments since the Jerry Pate.

"That has been another big key for us; it seems like if we get really close, five of the seven times, we have ended up winning it," Knight said. "I think that has given the team a lot of confidence."

And it has put the Rebels' opponents on notice.

"The other thing that is happening is the other teams around us, whether we're behind or ahead, they know we have a tendency to play really well that last round," Knight said.

"That's becoming a big part of what our team is and I think that's important. That's a nice quality to be able to have that."

As the Rebels prepare for the postseason and a run at a second consecutive national championship, Knight finds himself in unfamiliar territory in one respect.

Each of the past few years, Knight hasn't had too much problem picking his five players to form the traveling squad for the postseason. This year he has six players who have contributed to the team's success. So he is faced with leaving one talented player home beginning with the WAC Championships.

Senior Chris Berry and junior Jeremy Anderson and Michael Kirk have locked up the top three spots, but Knight has three players -- senior Charley Hoffman, sophomore Scott Lander and freshman Adam Scott -- who are capable of playing in the final two positions.

"That's the most difficult part," Knight said of picking two players from that trio. "We're switching guys around and we have still gone out and won. All three of those guys have really done a lot at different times to help us get where we are.

"I have got three guys who have won championships, individually, this year (Anderson, with two, Kirk and Berry) and I have those three that have really helped a lot. It's really a combination of figuring a starting five out of six players and that's not an easy task."

Not easy, perhaps, but it is an enviable dilemma for a coach.

"I could remember when Oklahoma State and Houston would sit All-Americans and I can remember thinking, 'Gosh, I wish I had one of those,' and, dang if we weren't in that spot ourselves this year for the first time," Knight said.

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