On countless courses across the country, golfers play to take their minds off day-to-day stresses.
For the UCLA men’s golf team, the sport is anything but a way to relax.
Coach Derek Freeman’s team is a nine-man roster of some of the best young golfers in the country. The catch is that collegiate golf tournaments consist of five-man teams. That means a lot of intense competition for spots on the traveling roster throughout the eight-month season.
“It’s hard,” Freeman said. “There are no off-days … and you just can’t have a bad round or you’re not going to play.”
This weekend UCLA will take all nine of its players to Washington for the Big Ten/Pac-10 Challenge at Chambers Bay Golf Club at Northwestern University. The tournament starts Sunday and will consist of eight teams, four from each conference.
Four Bruins will play as individuals, and the five-man team will consist of All-Americans Kevin Chappell and Lucas Lee, senior Craig Leslie, sophomore Jason Kang, and freshman Connor Driscoll.
That lineup was determined through three qualifying events the No. 2 Bruins held last week. The rounds were played at three different courses: Lakewood Golf Club in Carson, CordeValle Golf Club in San Martin, and Bel Air Country Club in Los Angeles. Kang finished in first at 10-under par and Leslie came in second at five under. The team’s top two players, Lee and Chappell, were exempt and did not have to play in the qualifiers.
Two notable players missed the cut: sophomore Erik Flores, who led the team in scoring with a 72.1 average last year, and star recruit Philip Francis, who won the 2006 U.S. Junior Amateur. Both will play as individuals this weekend.
“Every college golfer wants to play, so there is huge disappointment (for those who don’t qualify),” Freeman said. “That’s understood. If they’re not disappointed then we have some real issues.”
While the qualifiers can be a grind, Freeman sees the competition as extremely valuable for his team and considers it a great way to prepare his players for the challenges of professional golf. The various professional tours are nonstop action; players play four days of the week and spend the other three traveling.
“This absolutely helps our players prepare for the PGA tour,” Freeman said. “The day-to-day competitiveness that we have at UCLA is unparalleled. These guys know they’re going to be pushed every single day and that’s part of the reason they’re here.”
The team atmosphere is a huge change for the team’s two freshman, Driscoll and Francis.
“For the young guys it’s a huge adjustment, they’re trying to get used to the competitive nature of college golf and college life in general,” Freeman said.
The postseason is still a long ways away ““ conference championships start in May ““ and the team won’t set a traveling roster before it begins its spring campaign.
“(The players) know that if someone is playing bad at the end of the year they might not play. They all understand that they can never let up,” Freeman said.
“It’s my job to make sure that all our guys are peaking in the spring. That’s the most important thing.”