Senior John Poucher’s collegiate career, much like the
UCLA men’s golf team’s season, was cut one round short.
Because they failed to make the cut following Friday’s third
round, the Bruins came back to Los Angeles a day early, marking a
subdued end to Poucher’s time at UCLA. The senior struggled
in his final event for the Bruins, shooting a 54-hole total of
22-over par at Caves Valley Golf Club near Baltimore, Md., which
put him in a tie for 137th place. The only upperclassman on the
UCLA roster, Poucher was the lone hold-over from the dominant Bruin
teams that posted top-5 finishes at the NCAA Championships in 2003
and 2004. “With all the winning (those teams) did, Poucher
kind of brought that competitive spirit to our team,” said
sophomore Chris Heintz. “He showed losing stinks, and that we
shouldn’t accept it.” Though he was expected to lead a
team chock-full of freshmen and sophomores this year, Poucher
instead battled his swing and confidence for much of his final
season, compiling only the fourth-best stroke average (73.8) on the
team. After posting four consecutive top-15 finishes in the
exhibition fall season, Poucher’s struggles in the spring
delegated him to UCLA’s Blue Team, which plays behind the
traveling Gold Team. He rebounded in a comeback to the traveling
squad to finish tied for 14th at the Pac-10 Championships, but
could never muster a charge up the leaderboard for the final two
events of his career. Poucher will leave Westwood perhaps most well
known for adorning the cover of Golf Digest last season. The
6-foot-2, 210-pound Santa Barbara native was chosen to represent
the new caliber of athlete to be hitting the links. Poucher’s
departure will leave next year’s roster without a single
senior. The Bruins, however, will be ushering three heralded
recruits in Lucas Lee, James Lee and Erik Flores, each of whom is
ranked as one of the top-20 amateurs in the country.
NEAR MISS: While most of the Bruins wanted to rush home after
the team missed the cut on Friday, Heintz wanted to stick around
for Saturday’s final round. The sophomore, who had struggled
to find his swing all-year long, finally put his game together
during the back nine of Friday’s third round, carding a
1-under par 35 on his final nine holes. “I hit the ball like
crap all year, and finally I made it easy for myself and got back
to my old game, and shoot, the season’s over,” Heintz
said. Though his team was eliminated, Heintz was still in the
running for making the individual cut and earning honorable mention
All-America honors, but came up one shot short of qualifying for
Saturday’s final round. “When I found out later that
night, I was pretty pissed,” Heintz said.
LEPPING AHEAD: Washington’s James Lepp snagged the
individual championship away from Pepperdine’s Michael Putnam
Saturday at the NCAA Championships. Tied for eighth to begin the
final round, Lepp made up all of a six-shot deficit with an
astounding 7-under par 63 on Saturday, the lowest round of the
tournament, to catch Putnam at 4-under par. The two players went to
a playoff, where Lepp defeated Putnam on the third playoff hole to
claim medalist honors.