More than 2,000 miles away from State College in the middle of the Mojave Desert, Penn State students Drew Guaraldo and Kyle Tyson stood out among 700 students across the nation.

The two Penn State club golfers shot eight under par for a score of 64 and took home first place in the 2004 National Collegiate Golf Championship at Badlands Golf Course in Las Vegas, Nev.. Now they are looking forward to a free trip to Hawaii and an automatic return to the 2005 national tournament, the date of which has yet to be announced.

"It was really exciting," Tyson (sophomore-finance) said. "We were expecting to compete, to come close, but not to win it."

Guaraldo (freshman-electrical engineering) said he knew the pair had potential to win. "We didn't really expect to do that well, but we knew that we could based on how we did in practice," he said.

Club President Kevin Labutta said additional funding from the university made it possible for them to participate in the tournament, which helps make a name for the group.

"Our club is fairly new so we haven't really established ourselves," Labutta said. "When we go to a tournament like that and win, it shows other teams in the region that Penn State can go and compete with other universities -- especially to have a freshman and sophomore go down and win this thing. I think it says a lot for the team."

Club adviser John Pfau said the group began in 2001 with about 30 members and has since doubled in size.

Labutta said West Virginia University extended the team an invitation to compete in its local qualifier on Oct. 10, the club's first regional event. "So, we decided it was just a good idea to get the guys to play in a competitive match," he said.

Labutta said the club advanced its top-scoring members, which included two teams of two players.

Guaraldo and Tyson were the only members to qualify for nationals, which Guaraldo said was a complete surprise. The two took second place at WVU, but were still able to advance because their score was in the top 10 percent of local matches.

"We thought we were done," he said. "We didn't know about the 10 percent rule. Kyle and I both got e-mails that we qualified."

Tyson said the practice round for nationals, held the day before the tournament, gave them a better feel for the course.

"I had never played on a course like that before," Tyson said. "You definitely had to make accurate shots off the tee. It was either on the fairway or in the desert, where you'd have to take a penalty to drop it inside."

Greg Long, director of business operations at Collegiate Golf Alliance, which hosted the event, said the tournament was about 50 percent larger than the year before.

"Many of the teams in Las Vegas had an average score of just a few strokes under par," he said, "so it was a very high level of competition."

As for Guaraldo and Tyson, they will be flying to Kapalua Villas in Maui, Hawaii, this summer.

The two have a free package to play golf on the resort's course, which hosted the first PGA tour event this year.