UNLV golfer prepares for NCA A championships with sights on a pro career
As he played out the final holes of the Mountain West tournament in April, UNLV golfer Shintaro Ban felt comfortable enough to let his mind wander. With a huge lead in his back pocket and UNLV on track to win the team title, the usually focused senior was free to revel in his fifth career collegiate medal and his first individual conference victory as it was happening.
“The last four holes or so, I was just trying to embrace it and enjoy the moment,” Ban said. “I wanted to stay in the present, because it felt like my hard work was paying off. It felt really rewarding. And it was a great opportunity with my parents out there watching my last (conference tournament) — and knowing we got the team win as well; it was enjoyable.”
Ban fired a final-round 65 (7-under par) to run away with the MWC title by a record nine-strokes and cement himself as the latest in a long line of accomplished UNLV golfers. He’ll look to build on that legacy when he leads the Rebels into the NCAA championships beginning on Monday.
Winning hasn’t always come so easily for Ban. What he wasn’t thinking about during his victory lap at the Mountain West tournament were all the laps he completed as a youth swimmer. Growing up in Northern California, Ban’s first love was the pool — or so he thought.
As a pre-teen, Ban was dedicated to competitive swimming and everything that came with it, including the 4 a.m. alarms, the cold morning water and the endless, repetitive churn of lap after lap after lap, all in the pursuit of tenths of a second. And he was good at it, finishing first often enough to make all the hard work worthwhile.
And then everyone in his age group hit their growth spurts. While the competition grew taller, developed elongated strokes and recorded faster times, Ban stopped sprouting around his present-day height of 5-foot-8. Peers he used to beat regularly were leaving him in their wake, and physically there was nothing Ban could do about it. Suddenly, swimming wasn’t so fun.
Ban had a revelation: He wasn’t into swimming because he loved the sport; he was into it because he loved winning.