UC IRVINE NOTEBOOK / JOHN WEYLER : Move Improves Golfer’s Game

If Shawn Morley ever gets a chance to try for his PGA Tour card, he’ll have an advantage over the rest of the golfers battling the pressures of qualifying school.

Morley, who left his home in Australia two years ago to try to make the golf team at New Mexico State, found that there were almost 100 others vying for three open spots on the Aggie team.

He ended up finishing fourth.

Morley spent the next year trying to condition his Sydney sinuses to the arid Las Cruces air and then tried out again. Again, the competitors filled an entire day of foursomes, but this time they were vying for only two spots.

Morley finished third, a stroke shy.

He had picked New Mexico State--sight unseen with the exception of brochure pictures--because it offers a golf management program and he hopes to someday be a club pro. Unable to make the team and completely unimpressed with the landscape, Morley decided to become an economics major and try to make the team at UC Irvine.

“Let’s just say (Las Cruces) didn’t do much for me,” he said, smiling. “I got there, looked around, and said, ‘What is this?’ It was really weird and I didn’t know how it was going to last.

“I grew up near the ocean and now I live with a group of guys down near 31st Street (in Newport Beach) and I get out in the water to body surf a bit.”

The change of scenery seems to be helping. Last month, Morley finished second in the Grand Canyon Classic at Hillcrest Golf & Country Club in Sun City West, Ariz., leading the Anteaters to the title of the 17-team tournament.

Friday and Saturday, however, he’ll be back on New Mexico State’s University Golf Course as the Anteaters compete in the Wimberly Classic.

“He’s got a lot of local knowledge,” said Coach Steve Ainslie, unable to keep from laughing. “I guess he’s not too excited about returning to his old stomping grounds, but he’s played that course a couple of hundred times.

“Yeah, he called me out of the blue and I fell into a really good player, a really good guy, with Shawn. He’s one of the most popular players on the team and a heck of an athlete. We were just working out together and he was in there pumping iron and wearing out the Stairmaster.”

Morley, who started playing golf as 5-year-old when his family lived on a golf course, would probably still be playing rugby if he hadn’t suffered a career-ending ankle injury.

“Up until the time I was 12, we would sneak on every day after school and I was a pretty promising junior player,” Morley said. “But after that, I was fully into rugby. That took up all my time until I got hurt when I was 18.”

It didn’t take him long to get his game back on course. Morley, who possesses the dynamic duo that every golfer dreams of--he’s both very long and very straight off the tee--says all the time away from the links didn’t hurt much from a physical standpoint.

“If I had played the whole time, I would probably be farther ahead mentally, though,” he said. “Golf is a game where you are always learning and relearning how to score.”

After he gets his degree, Morley intends to play amateur golf for one year and then hopes to turn pro and play on the Australian tour, maybe some mini-tours in the United States, maybe even the PGA someday.

“College golf out here is so competitive, it’s really good for your game,” he said. “I guess the whole experience has been good for me because right now I feel like I’m not far away from getting my ‘A’ game and really tearing it up.”

*

Countdown to ecstasy? The men’s basketball team begins practice Saturday and there’s a definite aura of optimism around the offices of Rod Baker and staff these days.

Irvine, 10-20 and 4-14 in the Big West last season, had a very good recruiting year, yet the Anteaters also lost some good players during the off-season. But the pluses seem to outweigh the minuses.

Among the pluses:

* Kevin Simmons. The 6-foot-8, 230-pound freshman who attended a prep school in Troy, N.Y., last year to meet NCAA academic requirements, apparently has the game to be an immediate force inside. He will replace DeForrest Boyer, who set a school record with 59 blocked shots and averaged 6.7 rebounds as a senior. Simmons, who averaged 21 points and 17 rebounds as a senior at Brooklyn Tilden High, figures to provide a better balance of offense and defense.

* Raimonds Miglinieks. The 6-3 point guard from Riverside College was being recruited by schools such as California, Arkansas and Seton Hall. Miglinieks had 828 assists in two seasons at Riverside. He will replace the talented-but-often-out-of-control Lloyd Mumford. Mumford made things--both good and bad--happen, but Miglinieks makes everyone he plays with better.

* Michael Tate. Tate, a 6-5 transfer from Ventura College, averaged 12 points and 10 rebounds and was an All-Western State Conference selection. He’ll be playing in the power forward spot vacated by Jermaine Avie, who quit the team during the off-season. Avie became less of a force as last season wore on; consistency is Tate’s forte.

* Brian Keefe. The 6-4 shooting guard from Winchester (Mass.) High, where he averaged 28 points as a senior, was a last-minute signee, accepting a scholarship in mid-September. He has impressed Irvine coaches with his work ethic and his shooting ability. He fills the void left by Todd Whitehead. Whitehead left school because of academic problems; Keefe was named to the Boston Herald’s All-Scholastic team.

*

Wind-aided: Junior Shaun Battle, who was named to the Big West All-Freshman basketball team in 1992-93, is reportedly in the best shape of his life. The 6-6 forward can be an intimidating defensive player and dominating rebounder, but he spent the first couple of months of his first two seasons sucking air. If he’s fit, he can give opponents fits.

Anteater Notes

Senior P.J. Polowski continues to find the back of the net with amazing regularity. In two seasons of soccer, the transfer from Orange Coast College has established Irvine’s career goals record, scoring his 23rd on a penalty kick Sunday against Nevada Las Vegas. Polowski, with 12, is one goal shy of the single-season mark set by Ken Gunn in 1984. He’s No. 1 in the Far West and No. 3 in the nation with 31 points this season.