Golf surges to third round lead

GLENDALE, Calif. “”mdash; The 2003 Pac-10 Men’s Golf
Championship at Oakmont Country Club in Glendale is boiling down to
a heavyweight-boxing match.

In the blue corner, the No. 11 Bruins, trained by head coach
O.D. Vincent, have been preparing for this tournament and the NCAA
Championship all year long. 

And in the red corner, the other nine Pac-10 teams ““ each
trying to take away UCLA’s “home course
advantage” and walk away as this year’s Pac-10
champion. 

After taking a seven-shot lead into Tuesday’s third round,
UCLA delivered a vicious uppercut that sent the rest of the field
staggering. The Bruins compiled a team score of 355,
five-under par, and sit at one-over par for the tournament, 23
shots ahead of second-place Arizona.

“Our goal was to get back into red figures (under
par),” UCLA junior John Merrick said. 

Although the team missed its goal by two shots, it has still
opened up an enormous lead due to mediocre performances from the
other teams.

“When the rest of the field is not playing particularly
well, you have to take advantage,” Vincent said. “From
a coach’s perspective, I don’t think (the other teams)
have putted on greens as fast as these.”

UCLA fields four players in the top 10 individually. Even more
disconcerting to competing teams, three of the six individual
sub-par rounds on Tuesday had Bruin signatures, highlighted by a
pair of three-under 69s by UCLA juniors John Merrick and Steve
Conway. 

Merrick, who started the day at even par, is tied atop the
leaderboard at three-under par with Stanford’s Jim Seki, who
won last year’s Pac-10 individual crown. Merrick and
Ricky Barnes, winner of the 2002 U.S. Amateur will play together in
tomorrow’s final pairing.

“I’ll try not to get caught up with winning the
tournament on the first hole tomorrow,” Merrick
said. 

Merrick’s round wasn’t without a visit from
golf’s version of the twilight zone. On the par-3 11th,
Merrick’s tee shot struck the power-lines that run throughout
the course. The ball, zapped and demolished, was laid to rest
in a nice memorial service shortly afterward. 

An unnerved Merrick was allowed to take the shot over, and
promptly hit what he called “his best shot of the day,”
a 7-iron from 182 yards that landed within a foot of the hole. He
tapped in for one of his six birdies on the day.