University of New Mexico Men’s Golf
Up Next: Mountain West Championship
Dates: May 1-3
Course: Omni Tucson National Catalina Course (par-71, 7,144 yards), Tucson, Ariz.
Participating teams: No. 23 New Mexico, No. 24 UNLV, No. 35 San Diego State, Air Force, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Nevada, San José State, Wyoming
Lobos in the field: Andrej Bevins, Gavin Green, Gustavo Morantes, Sam Saunders, Sean Romero.
Live scoring: Golfstat.com
Glen Millican has issues.
The 14th-year head coach of the 23rd ranked University of New Mexico men’s golf team has enjoyed so much success at the Mountain West Championship that the perception is that failure to win a conference title now is almost more disappointing than it is exciting to win another crown.
That’s what six championships in his first 13 years will do for a program.
The Lobos are in search of their seventh under Millican’s command when they travel to Tucson on Friday-Sunday for the 2015 Mountain West Championship.
UNM is the two-time defending champion on the Catalina Course at the Omni Tucson National Resort. Senior Gavin Green is the defending individual champion, and expectations are high for a three-peat.
“Anytime you’ve had a good year, there’s more pressure on you to win your conference tournament because if we play well, there are a lot of things we can gain from it,” Millican said. “It’s the same situation we’ve been in the last couple of years. I think our guys are excited about it.
That’s due to the results UNM has enjoyed in its last three events. The Lobos tied with then-No. 2 Texas and then-No. 30 TCU in their match-play competitions at the JP Energy Red Raider Shootout in Lubbock, Texas.
They won the 3M Augusta Invitational in Augusta, Ga., to start April against a 15-team field that included Texas and current No. 1 Illinois (according to the latest Golfweek.com/Sagarin poll). Prior to that, UNM finished second among 15 teams at the Hootie’s at Bulls Bay Intercollegiate in Awendaw, S.C., with a 54-hole total of 15 under par.
“The whole team is jelling together, starting to play well together at the right time,” said senior Sam Saunders, who earned MW Player of the Week honors for his fifth-place finish at the 3M. “We think we can beat any team in the country. We had two goals going into this season – win a Mountain West championship and win a national championship.
“This is a chance to accomplish our first goal.”
The Lobos will rely on one of the best players in the nation to accomplish that feat in senior Gavin Green. Green, who has won three events so far this season and a record-setting eight for his UNM career.
Green is ranked as the No. 9 individual in the nation by Golfstat.com and No. 10 by Golfweek.com/Sagarin.
“Obviously, a lot of people are counting on us to win,” Green said, “so there’s pressure, but that’s normal. We don’t go out there thinking about winning the tournament. We take it day by day, stroke by stroke.”
Green’s stroke average of 70.19 this season currently ranks as the second lowest in school history (behind Spencer Levin’s 69.98 in 2004-05), but he isn’t a one-man gang for UNM.
“We haven’t been able to multiply Gavin’s score by four,” Millican joked, “so we’ve had to have a lot of other players play great golf.”
Saunders turned in fifth-place finishes in each of the events the Lobos have won this season – at the 3M Augusta Invite and the William H. Tucker Intercollegiate last fall. Senior Sean Romero has turned in four top-25 performances in the spring and has a 72.22 strokes-per average round in six events in 2015.
Sophomore Andrej Bevins has six top-20 finishes in 11 events, and freshman Gustavo Morantes, who began competing for the team in January, is averaging 72.33 strokes per round of over his last three events.
The team, however, credits its final-round collapse at the San Diego Classic in mid-March – or at least its team meeting in the aftermath – for helping them get on a roll the last three events. The Lobos had a 12-stroke lead over Washington heading into the final round, but the Huskies shot 21 strokes better on the last 18, and UNM fell to third in the event.
After the tournament, the team got together to examine ways to improve results. The players suggested that Millican and assistant coach Drew McGee spend time with each golfer in tournaments, rather than helping one through an entire round.
“They thought that knowing how everyone is doing would help them focus more,” Millican said. “They’re the ones playing. They know more than anyone else what they have or don’t have. They like knowing where they’re at (on the team leaderboard). Before it was like playing a basketball game and you had no idea what the score is.”
Few surprises await the Lobos, all of whom have played on the Catalina Course multiple times. But because the other MW team also are familiar with the course, Millican is expecting a hotly contested event
“If there’s great weather at the course, which is expected, it doesn’t provide a lot of separation,” he said. “You can’t just play OK and expect to get separation.”
Millican listed No. 25 UNLV and No. 37 San Diego State as UNM’s biggest threats but says several teams have shown the aptitude for an upset. Fortunately for the Lobos, they’ve already shown how they handle playing on bigger stages.
“Winning our conference is a big deal,” Millican said. “Anytime you have a championship, you want to put your best foot forward, and we know we can win.”
It’s an issue Millican and the Lobos have dealt with before. And dealt with successfully.