Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

UNLV men’s golf:

Dominance was the goal for Rebel golf team now entering hall of fame

2010 Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open-Media Day

Charley Hoffman, part of UNLV golf’s 1998 national championship team and a top PGA Tour player, poses for a photo with Rebel coach Dwaine Knight during a media for the 2010 Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open.

Championship teams often have a turning point, a moment that must be conquered in order to realize the dream season. For the 1997-98 UNLV men’s golf team, it came early in the fall season.

The Rebels had already won the Ping Preview Invitational in Albuquerque, the same course where they would go on to win the National Championship. But three weeks later, they went to a tournament in Birmingham, Ala., and bombed, finishing tied for last.

There was plenty of anger and a few pointed words, but the result was a renewed focus and a dominant run that will be honored next Friday as the team is inducted into the 20th anniversary class of the Southern Nevada Sports Hall of Fame.

“It was a wake-up call,” said Jeremy Anderson, a sophomore on the title team. “I think life in general is how you handle adversity and how you overcome it, and that’s what we did. We handled it, we overcame it and we became one hell of a team as a result.”

Joining the Rebels in this year’s class will be two-time UFC heavyweight champ and Bonanza High state wrestling champ Frank Mir, 1995 AL Rookie of the Year and Bishop Gorman High grad Marty Cordova and Sig Rogich, a life-long Nevadan whose history of promoting business and athletics in the state includes helping to bring Jerry Tarkanian to UNLV.

UNLV coach Dwaine Knight, a two-time National Coach of the Year including the 1997-98 season, was inducted by himself in the class of 2004. This time he’ll have company, although at least a couple of former players — Charley Hoffman on the PGA Tour and Bill Lunde on the Web.com Tour — are expected to be competing in tournaments next week.

“It’s a great honor to be inducted as an individual, but it’s the team that made it possible,” Knight said. “I didn’t hit a single shot.”

The Rebels’ primary starters that season were Anderson, Hoffman, Lunde, Chris Berry and Scott Lander. They set a program record with seven team tournament titles and their championship score — 34-under-par, 1,118 — broke the NCAA record for lowest total in history.

For a team that spent most of the season at the top of the polls, they had plenty of intrigue. On the plane ride home from that last-place finish, Knight told the team he was skipping the next event (a match play in Florida) to go recruit some “real players.”

That’s exactly what he did, and in his absence UNLV fended off some of the top teams to win the event. At the next tournament, Anderson won his first of two individual titles of the season.

“They made the statement, I didn’t end up making it,” Knight said. “And that put us back on the right track.”

They were a confident bunch, Anderson said, playing with the swagger of the Miami Hurricanes football teams he grew up watching in Florida or 1990 UNLV men’s basketball, the only other Rebel team to win a national title. That early-season preview event in Albuquerque was a chance to work on the national championship course but teams were generally wary of winning, because like the Par-3 event at the Masters no one had won both the warmup and the real thing.

“We weren’t superstitious. We were more of the ‘F you, watch me’ kind of team,” Anderson said. “We were feisty.”

Almost too feisty at the end, as 18 years later Anderson recalled standing over a birdie putt on No. 18 that he thought the team needed to guarantee victory. He pushed it about four and a half feet past the hole, then lipped out the follow-up, just for good measure.

“I totally got lost in the moment,” said Anderson, who added his hands were shaking on the attempts. “… I still think about that putt at 18.”

Turned out the leaderboard wasn’t entirely up to date, and Anderson’s 40 on the back nine was good enough to help UNLV notch a three-stroke victory. All season the team had eyed a national championship, but when it actually happened the enormity of their accomplishment hit the players in waves as they celebrated at the airport, enjoyed a parade down Fremont Street and started getting congratulated when they went out for dinner.

“Just the recognition around town, it was pretty cool,” Anderson said. “I mean, we’re a golf team, but we felt like celebrities.”

That feeling of community support is something that Knight has felt for this program ever since he started in 1987. A lot has changed since then, including the opening of several nationally recognized golf courses that often open their gates to the Rebels, but one thing has stayed the same.

“The fact that the city has embraced us and the state has embraced us, that’s an honor,” Knight said. “I really hope this reflects back on all those people who gave us a chance to stand alone on top of the mountain.”

Taylor Bern can be reached at 948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Taylor on Twitter at twitter.com/taylorbern.

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