Nov. 18, 2010
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —- University of New Mexico men’s golf coach Glen Millican completed his recruiting for the 2011 season earlier this week, announcing the signing of three recruits to National Letters of Intent. Each signee comes to the Lobos with both impressive pedigrees and distinctive backgrounds.
Millican is adding three, championship-caliber amateur golfers to the his 2011 squad in current high school seniors Sean Romero from Texarkana, Texas, Gavin Green from Selangor, Malaysia, and Victor Perez from Semeac, France.
“(Assistant coach) Brian (Kortan) and I are excited about all three of these guys,” Millican said. “We feel like in Sean, Gavin and Victor, we’ve got a very strong class coming in. We’ve got three guys that all have the ability to have an immediate impact on our program.”
Romero is ranked 60th nationally among prep golfers by Golfweek magazine. He won the 2010 Texas state golf championship as a junior and the 2009 AJGA Scissortail Junior championship. He’s the second Top-100 recruit to sign with Millican’s squad in the past three years, joining current sophomore and reigning Mountain West Conference Freshman of the Year John Catlin.
“Sean’s played a lot of very good golf,” Millican said. “Being the state champion in Texas is a great accomplishment. His Golfweek ranking shows that he’s had a tremendous amount of consistency with his game over the last couple of years.”
Green comes to UNM as the No. 2-ranked amateur in Malaysia, having captured both the 2009 and 2010 Malaysian Amateur Championship. Green also has the 2009 Malaysian Junior Open Championship to his name and tied for fifth in the 2010 Malaysian Open, competing, of course, as an amateur.
“Gavin will be the first person from Malaysia – to my knowledge – to play for UNM,” Millican said. “I had a chance to see him play in San Diego this summer and came away very impressed with the tools he has. He’s got a good-looking game all the way around, and he’s dominated amateur golf and junior golf in his home country over the last couple of years. It’s exciting to see a guy with that many wins come into our program.”
Perez also brings amateur championship hardware to the Lobos. He won both the 2009 and 2010 Medoc Grand Prix championship, as well as tying for second at the 2010 Belgian International and Grand Prix du PGC. He also tied for seventh at the prestigious 2010 Biarritz Cup.
“Victor kind of has the same type of record as Gavin in that he’s enjoyed a tremendous amount of success and won a lot of golf tournaments,” Millican said. “He’s played all over Europe and had a lot of success. We had a great visit with him. We’re excited to have him come in as well.”
Perez was the final signee of the trio to put his name on the dotted line, having accepted a place on the Lobos’ squad this past weekend during his official visit. Perez flew in from France for the weekend, then headed back overseas knowing he had a home for the next 4-5 years in the University of New Mexico.
“All three of these guys have played great golf,” Millican said. “We see things in all three of their games that make us feel like they can help us right away and continue to help us the whole time they’re here.”