At a homecoming tailgate party in November, one of Arizona’s many former PGA Tour golfers stood in front of former teammates and school officials and fumed about the demise of the UA’s men’s golf program. It wasn’t anything you’d want your kids to hear.
It ended with: “Who’s going to do something about this?”
On Tuesday, George Cunningham did something about it. And so did David Laskin, Tianlang Guan and Trevor Werbylo.
Five years after being hired to fix a declining golf program and restore it to national prominence, UA coach Jim Anderson delivered.
It was not an overnight success.
It wasn’t just that Arizona stunned No. 3 Texas A&M, No. 6 Baylor and No. 13 Cal; it was how it all came together. The Wildcats spent 24 anguishing hours trailing three teams from the little ‘ol West Coast Conference — St. Mary’s, Santa Clara and LMU, and five other teams, including UTSA.
Those schools used to be birdfeed for the once-mighty Arizona men’s golf program, which had unofficially been declared missing for 10 years.
But on Tuesday afternoon at the Sewailo Golf Course, the Wildcats staged a comeback for the ages.
“We were 11-under par in the last seven holes,” said Anderson. “We won by two.”
Nobody does that, and especially not an Arizona program that hasn’t finished higher than seventh place in the Pac-12 dating to 2008.
On the 18th hole, Werbylo, a freshman and former state champion at Salpointe Catholic, hit his approach shot to 4 inches. UA assistant coach Chris Nallen walked onto the green and said “you just won us the tournament.”
“We’ll see,” said Werbylo, who had not seen a leaderboard nor been updated on the remarkable turn of events.
“No,” Nallen repeated, “you just won us the tournament.”
It wasn’t just Werbylo, who finished with a 4-under 68. It was sophomore Laskin shooting 65, with birdies at 13, 14, 15 and 16. And it was Guan, who played in the Masters as a 14-year-old, finishing 10th in his breakout performance as a collegian with a birdie at 18 to clinch it.
“I definitely get a little bit emotional when I think about it,” said Anderson, a 36-year-old former New Mexico Lobo golfer who was hired off the staff at Texas A&M in the summer of 2012. “The bar is so high, and Arizona has had so many great players — winning a national championship — and putting so many on the PGA Tour.
“I’m sure at some point we’ll reflect on what this means. Hopefully we can go, ‘yep, that’s the one that catapulted us.’”
It was fitting that Nallen was the man who told Werbylo that the Wildcats were winners. The last time Arizona was an elite program, 2004, it won the Pac-10 championship, finished third in the NCAA finals and Nallen, the league’s player of the year, set a career scoring record that still stands, No. 1 on the board above Jim Furyk, Rory Sabbatini, Robert Gamez, Ricky Barnes and those who made Arizona a top-10 program from 1985-2004.
To return to prominence, Arizona needs another player like Nallen. And over 54 holes at Sewailo, that man was senior George Cunningham, a home-schooled golf prodigy from Tucson who agreed to become a Wildcat a year before Anderson was hired.
Cunningham shot a birdie-free 65 on Tuesday when almost nothing else would have been good enough for the Wildcats to win the Arizona Intercollegiate championship over 16 other teams.
This doesn’t guarantee that Anderson will lead the Wildcats back to the level that Hall of Fame coach Rick LaRose established in that memorable 20-year period, but it appears that a foundation for success is in place.
“I am beyond happy,” Cunningham said in a post-victory interview. “To get this win is the biggest thing to happen to me as far as my college career.”
Cunningham’s UA career has reflected the school’s golf difficulties. He has been injured, he lost a lot of confidence, and mostly he had not been the No. 1 player Arizona hoped it recruited all those years ago.
“George is someone who has played well enough as a junior golfer to entertain the idea of playing professionally before his college eligibility is over,” said Anderson. “Playing as well as he did, finishing second overall, is a huge confirmation for him. We all know what he can do.”
You have no chance to favorably compete in the Pac-12 without an alpha male golfer. That never used to be a problem at Arizona. There was always a Ted Purdy or a Jason Gore. Now, with Cunningham back on his game, Arizona has a chance against the top 25.
A year ago the Wildcats had difficulty breaking the top 100 nationally. They entered this week at No. 51. When the new rankings are released, they could be close to No. 25.
Before Anderson left the golf course Tuesday, he met with Texas A&M coach J.T. Higgins, who was his coach at New Mexico and later hired him as his assistant at A&M.
What were the odds that Anderson’s first big victory at Arizona would be against his coaching mentor?
“When we shook hands, coach Higgins said ‘this was a good tournament for us, too. We wanted to go mano a mano against a good team, and today we did.’”
