DATE: Wednesday, October 29, 1997           TAG: 9710280502

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C8   EDITION: FINAL 

COLUMN: FORE!
YOUR WEEKLY LOCAL GOLF REPORT

SOURCE: BY RICH RADFORD, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   46 lines

FROM AFRICA, VIA U.VA.

Being from Zimbabwe, Lewis Chitengwa isn't used to the prevailing pollen of Charlottesville, so much so that he's ended up in emergency rooms twice with breathing problems and red, itchy eyes.

When he's not battling allergies, though, his golf game is nothing to sneeze about.

Chitengwa, 22, is a two-time All-American who is hoping to make his senior season at Virginia his crowning achievement. He's won twice in his three previous years, capturing the Furman Intercollegiate as a freshman and Seminole Classic as a junior. He began this season finishing tied for second in the Keswick Club Cavalier Classic.

U.Va. has always had a worldly approach to recruiting, but landing a star player from southern Africa?

``I first saw him when he won the Orange Bowl Junior in 1992,'' said U.Va. coach Mike Moraghan. ``I started actively recruiting him and luckily he had a friend of the family who is a professor on the West Coast and highly recommended U.Va.''

Seeing how the long-hitting Chitengwa beat, among others, Tiger Woods in the Orange Bowl, he immediately became a valued recruit.

Getting him in school wasn't quite as easy as turning him onto the school, however.

With his native language being Shona, the club pro's son had to brush up on his English. He ended up taking a semester's worth of classes at Piedmont Community College in Charlottesville and then had to withstand a U.Va. summer transition program.

Beyond that, he had to weather a different transition.

``I'd never thought about playing golf in the snow,'' said Chitengwa, who was more used to seeing warthogs and monkeys on the fairways that to witnessing snowflakes. ``And then one fall we were playing at Kingsmill and there were flurries on the third hole.''

Chitengwa, whose seventh-place finish in the 1996 NCAAs was the best by a Cavalier since Dixon Brooke won the 1940 title, intends to remain in the U.S. once his college days end. The PGA Tour awaits.

``I'll play in some of the major amateur events this coming summer,'' said Chitengwa, who is majoring in African/American studies. ``And then I'll get ready for the 1998 Tour School.''

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