W. golf: Taking aim at an NCAA repeat

Ask UCLA women’s golf coach Carrie Forsyth why her team
has a chance to repeat as national champions, and the answer may be
surprising. It’s not because the Bruins are the best team in
the field. Forsyth believes only four rounds of championship golf
can confirm that. It’s not because UCLA is the defending
champion. In golf, success usually doesn’t translate from one
tournament to the next, let alone a tournament played a year ago.
Instead, Forsyth points out that the best reason UCLA has a chance
to win is because this year’s team is markedly different than
last year’s and is thus just as hungry to claim a title and
unwilling to ride on last season’s coattails. The Bruins will
get their chance to satiate their championship desires starting
today in the first of four rounds at the NCAA Championships, held
on the Meadows Course on Sunriver Resort in Redmond, Ore. And even
though second-ranked UCLA will be aiming for its second consecutive
national title, Forsyth believes it will take an effort only this
year’s team can produce to achieve the feat.
“It’s a different team,” Forsyth said. “I
feel like the talent on this team is tremendously great. Last year
was a great year, but now we want to win for this team.”
“What’s different is that last year, everybody was
consistent,” sophomore Hannah Jun said. “This year, the
team we have now is a little deeper, in the sense that we can shoot
really low scores.” But despite the fact that Forsyth
stresses her current team’s individuality as its premier
asset, it is hard to escape how strikingly similar this
year’s team is to the one that claimed the national title a
year ago. Aside from new additions in freshman Amie Cochran and
senior Melissa Martin to the starting lineup, UCLA will still most
likely rely on the same cast of players it did last season, when
senior Charlotte Mayorkas and junior Susie Mathews both posted
top-five finishes in the championship tournament. Like last year,
the Bruins are coming off a dominant spring season in which it won
five of the six tournaments it played. And once again, UCLA, like
the rest of the field, comes into Sunriver as the heavy underdog to
a much-hyped, top-ranked Duke team. While last year, the Bruins
felt they were not given the respect they deserved, UCLA is
perfectly content to let the Blue Devils hog the spotlight this
time around. Forsyth and her players take solace in the fact that
in the last year, the Bruins have visited the national
champions’ podium, while Duke has not. “From what
I’ve heard, we’re not the favorite,” Forsyth
said. “Duke is the favorite again. But they came in third
last year, so I don’t know what that means. All I know is
that we’ll both be in it at the end.” And if it comes
down to the back nine on Friday’s final round, Forsyth is
confident her team will know how to handle the pressure. Unlike
last year, when the Bruins often dominated their competition by
more than 15 strokes, UCLA has had to scrap for each of its five
victories this season. The Bruins were never able to win by more
than four strokes. Yet the Bruins’ worst finish of the year
came on the course they hope to conquer this week. Back in
September at the Fall Preview at Sunriver, a tournament designed to
give the teams a sneak peak at this season’s championship
venue, UCLA struggled and finished in seventh place, finishing 18
shots behind champion Duke. But Forsyth is convinced her team, and
the conditions they’ll face this week, will be considerably
different. “When we came up to the Fall Preview last time, we
were exhausted, having just come off the plane and playing a
tournament,” Forsyth said. “Plus the course is in much
better tournament conditions. It’s playing a lot more
championship-style now.” So while the Bruins claim
they’re ready to defend their championship, their success
last season will be all but a distant memory. That’s because
there’s a new challenge ahead and a new team to meet it.
“The repeat thing is just a little speck in the back of our
minds,” Forsyth said.

“If we play like we have been all season, smart,
consistent and playing with a lot of heart, there is no team that
can beat us. Our best is the best,” Jun said.

FRINGE FACTS: The Meadows Course on the Sunriver Resort will
play to a length of 6,312 yards and a par of 71. Already considered
a lengthy course for women’s tournaments, the weather
forecast only promises to make the golf course play longer.
Thunderstorms and showers are expected for two of the
tournament’s four days, which will most likely result in
delays and wet terrain, limiting the amount of roll players will
get from their drives. But the forecast doesn’t bother
Forsyth one bit. “It’s going to be like golf in
Scotland, the way the game is supposed to be played,” Forsyth
said. … UCLA tees off in the last afternoon grouping off the
first hole starting at 1:30 p.m. The Bruins will be paired with
Auburn and Ohio State.

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