Golf Signs Two Standouts
11/10/1999 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
Nov. 10, 1999
LAS VEGAS - Two junior golf standouts have signed national letters of intent to attend UNLV beginning in the fall of 2000, UNLV Golf Head Coach Dwaine Knight announced Wednesday.
James Oh, from Lakewood, Calif., and Travis Whisman from Reno, Nev., are Knight's latest additions to a program currently ranked seventh in the nation.
Oh, who attends Lakewood High School, is the 1998 U.S. Junior champion. He also is an AJGA High School First-Team All-American and is currently ranked third in the nation among all junior players.
Oh was a quarterfinalist at both the U.S. Amatuer and U.S. Publinx this year. He won the American Junior Golf Rolex Tournament of Champions at Ohio State this past summer and chose UNLV over Texas, UCLA, Arizona State, Arizona and New Mexico.
"James was certainly one of the most highly-recruited juniors in the nation," Knight said. "He had the opportunity to go anywhere that he wanted to. It is a tremendous statement for our program that he would choose UNLV and we are thrilled to have him."
Whisman, who attends Galena High School, is the 1998 Nevada state high school champion and the 1995 and 1997 Nevada Junior champion. He is a five-time USGA Junior qualifier, while the only other golfer to ever qualify for that event that many times in Jack Nicklaus.
Whisman, who has a 3.95 grade point average, won the 1996 Doug Sanders International and was the 1996 Junior World champion. An AJGA Junior Golf All-American, he finished second in the 1998 Founders Legacy Championship in Las Vegas. He is currently the 21st-ranked junior in the country by Golfweek Magazine and chose UNLV over Stanford, Pepperdine and Arizona State.
"We felt that Travis was one of the best players in the country, and with him being a Nevada state champion, we were really excited to have him look at us," Knight said. "He had a lot of opportunities including going to Stanford. It was a real difficult decision for him, but we feel he made the right one. He played in the PGA Tour Reno/Tahoe Open, which shows the quality of a player that he is. His best golf is still ahead of him and we are excited to have him."
