Wednesday, May 05, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

UNLV WOMEN'S GOLF: Rebels eye strong finish

Hope extra work on short game will mean major gains

By KEVIN IOLE
REVIEW-JOURNAL

Sunny Oh will lead UNLV into the NCAA Eastern Regional Championships, which start Thursday in Howey in the Hills, Fla. Photo by Ralph Fountain.

Last year, the UNLV women's golf team was like a baseball team without a good closer: It would take a lead into the ninth inning before blowing it.

But with her team heading into the NCAA Eastern Regional Championships -- which begin Thursday at the Mission Inn Golf and Tennis Resort in Howey in the Hills, Fla. -- Rebels coach Missy Ringler is confident she has found her closer.

UNLV golfers worked so much on their short games that it got monotonous at times. But because of their improvement in that area, Ringler said, the 17th-ranked Rebels have a legitimate shot to advance to the NCAA Championships for the first time in the program's three-year history.

The team spent hours chipping, hours pitching, hours in the bunker, hours on the green. Day after day. Week after week.

Soon Ringler noticed a trend. The Rebels began to close the door when they had the chance, playing their best in the final round when the conditions were toughest and the pressure most intense.

"We just weren't getting up and down and making the par saves we had to have to compete at the level we wanted to be at," said Ringler, who will use Hwanhee Lee, Sunny Oh, Elena Kurokawa, Seema Sadekar and Young Pak in the regional.

"Against the teams that we have to beat, we just weren't stacking up. And it was all short game. You have to save those pars when you miss the green, and we weren't doing that."

So Ringler sent the team off between semesters on a short-game boot camp of sorts. She had little fear about how well the players would strike the ball, but was greatly concerned with how close they got their chips and how many putts they made.

Ringler attacked the Rebels' approach as well as their mechanics, and the result was a better than one stroke drop in the putting average -- from 30.6 putts per round to 29.5. That might not seem like a lot to a 25-handicapper, but at the highest level of women's collegiate golf, it's huge.

It showed as the Rebels won the Mountain West Conference championship. UNLV placed four players in the top 10 and finished strong by shooting its best score in the final round, led by Sadekar's 6-under 66.

After shooting 289 and 291 in the first two rounds, UNLV closed with a 12-under 276 and has shot its low round on the final day of three of the last four tournaments.

"As a team, we're playing well, but I still think our best golf is yet to be played," Ringler said. "When you get the confidence of knowing that you can get up and down when you have to, it takes a lot of pressure off the rest of your game. They really worked hard to get better around the green, and now is the time that work is going to pay off."