The final block in the foundation for Charlotte's rise to the No. 1 ranking this fall in the Golfweek/Sagarin ranking system came last spring when the 49ers tied with Lamar for third place in the NCAA Championships, behind Stanford and Georgia.

Charlotte coach Jamie Green believes that accomplishment provided the impetus for what is shaping up as an outstanding 2007-08 season. Heading into late October, the top-ranked 49ers had won all three tournaments they had competed in, outplaying 48 other teams, and are in the process of stamping themselves as an up-and-coming player on the national scene.

The No. 1 ranking is the highest by any Charlotte sports team in history, topping the men's soccer team, which was ranked second in the Intercollegiate Association of America poll in Oct. of 1992.
"Last year's finish in the NCAA Tournament was a pretty big accomplishment," said Green, who is in his fifth year at the 49ers' helm. "That was a good confidence-builder to know that when it came to putting the peg in the ground at the end of the year we were right there.

"It gave them an awareness of knowing they're capable of winning a tournament like that. It showed them they could play at a high level and gave them the confidence not to look at the names on the scoreboard or the bag and think those guys might be in a different class."

Charlotte returned most of its players from last year's team, losing Matt Mincer, the A-10 Player of the Year who graduated and is currently hiking the Appalachian Trail, and Ray Sheedy, who set the school scoring record of 71 as a junior.

 The closest thing to a star on this year's club is senior Andrew DiBetetto, who has won 13 tournaments during his career. But Green says the strength of this team is depth, and a good example of that came recently in The Prestige tournament at the Greg Norman Course in LaQuinta, Calif.

With three players finishing in the top 10, Charlotte won the three-round event at 10-under par, eight strokes better than defending national champion Stanford. Sophomore Corey Nagy had four birdies in the final round to place third at five-under par, senior Jonas Enander Hedin finished at four-under tied for fourth and DiBetetto was eighth at two-under.

Nagy, a freshman All-American in 2006-07, and junior Stefan Wiedergruen, a member of the German National team, have each won a tournament this fall. Wiedergruen wasn't even in the lineup at last year's NCAA Regional.
"What our team has had the last few years is a good amount of depth, which is helpful when you're playing tournament golf," Green said. "We have a balance of players and all five seem to take turns playing well and bouncing back well. If someone is struggling for awhile, we have enough depth that the overall group seems to perform well and I would not be surprised to see that be the case throughout the rest of the year. I think things bode well for them continuing to have success.'

While acknowledging that the 49ers are in a pretty heady atmosphere with their No. 1 ranking, DiBitetto says the challenge now is to maintain their strong start the rest of this fall and into next spring.

"I think it's incredible," DiBitetto said. "We have done some magnificent things in a very short period of time, but we can't stop here and get comfortable. We need to keep doing the things we have done to continue to be successful. This is great, but we can't reach our ultimate goal until May and June. This isn't the end of it. If anything, this is just the beginning."

Green thinks his players will deflect any temptation to rest on their laurels.
"The guys we have on this team more than anything do not get complacent," he said. "They are never satisfied, and they do everything they can to get better, all the time. I take as much pride in their work ethic as I do in the scores at the end of the day."

Charlotte's golf has experienced a steady rise under Green, a 1993 graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and a former assistant coach at North Carolina and Auburn. In his first season with the 49ers, he guided them to the runnerup spot in Conference USA. In his second season, they earned their first NCAA Tournament bid in school history. In his third season they won the A-10 championship. Then came last year's breakthrough campaign.
 "Jamie Green has done one of the finest jobs in college golf over the past three seasons," said college golf expert Lance Ringler, host of Off Campus with Lance Ringler on Golfweek TV.com. "This 49ers team is legit."
Green says he has built Charlotte's program by stressing academics as the main priority, with golf such a close second that they are virtually indistinguishable.

"We know the kind of guys we want to bring in and we've done pretty well with that system," he said. "There's a whole culture of scholarly success. We try to find the right fit, guys who are hungry, work hard and have goals beyond college. Then when we get enough of them, it's dig it out of the dirt and the strong will survive."
And the 49ers are obviously surviving very well these days.