Just when it looked like nothing would stop the No. 2 UCLA
women’s golf team from rolling into the Pac-10 Championships
on a three-tournament winning streak, lightning struck.
Sort of.
With UCLA holding a slight lead over the rest of the field and
looking ready to cruise to another victory, Arizona State’s
Charmaine Erasmus stepped up to the seventh hole, a par-3 at 155
yards, and recorded the tournament’s only hole-in-one.
The shot sparked Arizona State’s dramatic final round
comeback, as the Sun Devils made up all of a four-shot deficit
entering Sunday’s final round to catch UCLA by
tournament’s end.
The Bruins still claimed a share of first place at the ASU
Invitational on Karsten Golf Course in Tempe, Ariz. with a
collective total of 6-over par, but much to their chagrin, were
denied a chance at winning the tournament outright due to the
pre-existing tiebreaker.
“I actually asked if we could play off for it,” UCLA
coach Carrie Forsyth said. “The (tournament committee) wanted
to go with what was already written down, which I thought was
funny. The girls just wanted to play for it. They’re not
happy finishing tied for first. We would have changed our flight
for it.”
Despite having to share tournament honors, UCLA is headed into
the postseason on the heels of another strong performance, made
more significant by the maturation and performance of freshman Amie
Cochran.
While it has typically been senior Charlotte Mayorkas or junior
Susie Mathews who have led the Bruins to the top of the
leaderboard, it was Cochran who paced UCLA in the desert.
Having come a long way from her disappointing performance in the
team’s season-opening tournament in which she had rounds of
80 and 81, Cochran was the only Bruin to post three consecutive
under-par rounds in the tournament (71, 71, 70).
“When she would make a birdie, she’d celebrate it a
little too much, and when she made mistakes, she took it too
hard,” said Forsyth of Cochran in the beginning of the
season. Now she’s just playing. It’s not the huge high
and lows anymore. She’s actually in control.”
As a result, Cochran recorded the best finish of her young
career, finishing in second place at 4-under par.
Absent from her usual spot in the top-10 was Mayorkas. Though
she battled on Saturday and Sunday with rounds of even-par (72),
the senior never fully recovered from a quadruple bogey on the
par-3 16th hole on the opening day of the tournament. It was only
the third time in the last 18 tournaments that Mayorkas
didn’t crack the top 10.