Sept. 24, 2010

LAS VEGAS (UNLVRebels.com) - The UNLV men's golf team will head to Stillwater, Okla., for the PING/Golfweek Preview, which will be played Sunday-Tuesday, September 26-28, at Karsten Creek Golf Club (par 72, 7,407 yards). Karsten Creek will also be the site of the 2011 NCAA Championship this spring.

Four of the nation's top-five ranked teams, seven of the top 10 and 14 of the top 23 will compete at the Preview, which UNLV has won on three occasions (1993, 1996 and 1997). The 15-team field includes (Golf World/NIKE Golf Preseason Coaches' Poll ranking in parenthesis): Augusta State (3), Arizona State (12), Clemson (17), Georgia (4), Georgia Tech (10), Oklahoma State (1), Oregon (5), TCU (23), Texas (11), Texas A&M (9), Texas Tech (21), UCLA (7), UNLV, USC (13) and Virginia (20).

The 54-hole stroke-play tournament will consist of 18 holes (one round) per day with tee times beginning at 8 a.m. CST on Sunday and Monday, then the final round beginning at 7:30 a.m.

Scheduled to compete for UNLV will be the same five players that played in this season's opening tournament: freshman Blake Biddle, junior Derek Ernst, sophomore Kevin Penner, junior Colby Smith and senior Jeremiah Wooding.

Oklahoma State is the two-time defending team Preview champion. Individually, in 2009, OSU's Peter Uihlein captured medalist honors, and in 2008 there were co-medalists - OSU's Morgan Hoffmann and Tennessee's Robin Wingardh. Last year, UNLV finished tied for eighth at the Preview, which was held at Gold Mountain Golf Club in Bremerton, Wash. Ernst was UNLV's top finisher in a tie for 12th.

Live scoring of the Preview will be available courtesy of Golfstat.com through a link at UNLVRebels.com.

In its first tournament of the year, UNLV finished fifth at the Gene Miranda Falcon Invitational in Colorado Springs, Colo., Sept. 19-20. Ernst led the Rebels with a 12th-place individual finish.