April 29, 2009
LAS VEGAS - The No. 22 UNLV men's golf team will compete at the 2009 Mountain West Conference Men's Golf Championship beginning on Thursday, April 30 at the OMNI Tucson National Golf Club (par 71, 7,136 yards) in Tucson, Ariz.
The 2009 championship will mark the third straight year that the tournament will be held in Tucson, Ariz., and just the third time in the last nine years that the MWC Championship will not have been held in Sunriver, Ore. The first MWC Championship was played in Palm Desert, Calif., in 2000, while the 2001-2006 events were at the Crosswater Course at Sunriver.
UNLV won the inaugural MWC Championship in 2000 and again in 2002, and will be looking for its third MWC title this week. BYU won in 2001, New Mexico won the title four straight years from 2003-06, BYU won again in 2007 and the 2008 team title was captured by Colorado State.
Individually, UNLV has had three MWC champions with Michael Kirk claiming medalist honors in 2000, Ryan Moore in 2004 and Eddie Olson last year. Olson's three-shot win last year tied the tournament's record for margin of victory, which was set in 2002 and tied in 2004.
Last year, UNLV finished fourth as a team at the MWC Championship at 7-over 859, nine shots back of CSU. Olson's 54-hole total was 4-under 209. Brett Kanda and former Rebel Seung-Su Han each tied for 10th at last year's event, with scores of 2-over 215.
Competing for the Rebels at this year's MWC Championship will be Olson, who is a junior, Kanda, who is also a junior, sophomore Ji Moon and freshmen Derek Ernst and Colby Smith. This will mark Olson's and Kanda's third MWC Championship appearance, while Moon will be competing at the event for the second time. Olson's first career victory was at last year's MWC Championship, while Kanda's best finish at the event was a tie for ninth in 2007.
Olson has UNLV's best individual finish this season as he tied for medalist honors at the William H. Tucker Intercollegiate in Albuquerque, N.M., in September.
Play at the 54-hole tournament will begin each day at 7 a.m. PDT with 18 holes each day from Thursday through Saturday, May 2.
UNLV holds the MWC Championship record for 54-hole score at 19-under 845, which was set in 2000 and also the largest margin of victory, which was 23 shots - also in 2000. Moore set the lowest 54-hole total by an individual at the championship at 10-under 206 in 2004.
UNLV has won two team titles this season (the Tucker Intercollegiate and the Southern Highlands Collegiate Championship, which was played in Las Vegas in March) and has finished in the top five in seven of its 10 tournaments.
The Rebels have played in one previous tournament this season at Tucson National Golf Club, finishing fourth at the National Invitational Tournament in March. Live stats for the MWC Championship will be available through a link on UNLVRebels.com. For more information on the MWC Championships, visit TheMWC.com or its men's golf championship page by clicking here.
