Off the shores of the Florida coast, the building tension
stirred up by Hurricane Wilma finally got to the UCLA men’s
golf team.
The No. 10 Bruins, who were delayed by one day due to the
hurricane, finished their tournament on Tuesday, culminating in a
tie for 11th place at the Isleworth Collegiate Invitational, hosted
by the University of Central Florida.
Wilma is the latest hurricane to wreak havoc on the southern
swing of the country, and one of the latest victims was the
Isleworth Collegiate Invitational, which took place at the
Isleworth Country Club in Orlando, Fla.
Fearing that the teams wouldn’t be given the opportunity
to play the final 18 holes and get the results in the books, the
tournament schedule was altered. The first 36 holes were played on
Sunday, taking Monday off to let the storms pass through, and
playing the final 18 on Tuesday. After the first two rounds of
play, UCLA was in fourth place and well-positioned entering the
final stretch of the tournament, trailing Wake Forest by only 21
strokes.
“We were really encouraged about our play on the first
couple of rounds,” coach O.D. Vincent said. “At that
point, we could have taken advantage of our place in the field, put
together a run, and maybe even won.”
But the Bruins trotted out a much different product after
Hurricane Wilma had swept through Orlando.
Once golf resumed after a 24-hour delay, scores throughout the
field of play soared as the poor course conditions affected the
players’ performances.
On the final rain battered day of competition, the average score
from all golfers was 80.2 (+8), as the prevailing winds circled the
golf course at almost 30 miles per hour. No team struggled more
than UCLA, who didn’t have a single player break 80 and had
the highest score on the final 18 holes of any team competing.
The Bruins fell down the leaderboards from fourth to 11th, and
finished with an aggregate score of 912 (+48), 40 strokes behind
Georgia. Oklahoma State, 879 (+15), finished in second, followed by
Georgia Tech, 894 (+30), and Arizona State, 899 (+35).