Jan. 29, 2009

LAS VEGAS - The UNLV men's golf team, ranked 17th in the country in the latest Golfweek/Sagarin ratings, will open its spring season at the Arizona Invitational, which will be played Monday and Tuesday, Feb. 2-3, at Arizona National Golf Club (par 71, 6,900 yards) in Tucson, Ariz.

The 54-hole tournament, which will consist of 36 holes played on Monday and 18 on Tuesday, has 17 teams scheduled to compete. The field consists of BYU, California, UC Irvine, Coastal Carolina, East Tennessee State, Long Beach State, Middle Tennessee State, Nevada, Reno, Pepperdine, Rice, San Diego State, Tennessee, Tulsa, UNLV and host Arizona (two squads).

The tournament will have shotgun starts each day with play scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. MST.

Last year the tournament was known as the PING Arizona Intercollegiate as Tennessee (272-277-283--832, -20) captured the team title and UCLA's Kevin Chappell (67-67-64--198, -15) won medalist honors. UNLV finished second at last year's event at 17-under par, while its best individual finish was by then-freshman Ji Moon, who tied for fifth at 6-under.

Live scoring of the tournament will be available off a link at UNLVRebels.com, courtesy of Golfstat.

UNLV competed in four tournaments in the fall, turning in top-five finishes in all four. The Rebels finished second at the Gene Miranda Falcon Invitational to open the season in Colorado Springs, won the team title at the William H. Tucker Invitational in Albuquerque, N.M., finished fifth at the Jerry Pate National Intercollegiate in Birmingham, Ala., and tied for third at the Turtle Bay Intercollegiate in Kahuku, Hawaii, to close out the fall season.