By the last stretch of the four-day, 72-hole season-ending tournament, only the three Pac-10 teams remained at the top.
In the final round of Friday’s NCAA Championship, top-ranked Arizona State had already surged ahead of the other teams gathered at the Caves Valley Golf Course in Maryland, putting the title out of reach for the No. 2 UCLA and the No. 3 USC women’s golf teams. The back nine on Friday became a battle for second between the crosstown rivals.
For the second straight year, UCLA earned a second-place finish at the NCAA Championships with an 1190 (+38) from the four-day marathon. After being down four strokes to USC going into the final round, the Bruins would make up that ground by posting 297 (+4) on the day to beat their rivals by one stroke.
The three Pac-10 teams, ranked top three in the nation, had been going at each other all season long. This battle ended with ASU on top as the 2009 national champion, with a tournament score of 1182 (+30) eight strokes ahead of the second-place Bruins.
“We pretty much played the exact same schedule (all season),” freshman Stephanie Kono said. “It was good because the competition was really tough. It’s hard to win against those two schools. Anytime you come out on top it feels good. This whole season, it was really fun, it was really rewarding, it was really good going against those two schools.”
No. 5 Oklahoma State took fourth with 1199 (+47), while first-round leader No. 14 Denver rounded out the top five with 1206 (+54).
Sophomore Maria Jose Uribe, who fired a brilliant 66 (-2) in round two, was unable to recreate that performance, shooting 77 (+5) in the final round. Totaling 195 (+7) in the tournament, Uribe fell from second to tied for eighth in the individual rankings.
“It’s just golf,” Uribe said. “Some days you (are successful), the other days you don’t really do it. I hit the ball really good on the second day, and that’s why I was able to shoot 66. The other days things didn’t go my way. … It was good to have at least one good round and help my team that day.
“It just wasn’t my week, I guess.”
Senior Tiffany Joh said she heeded assistant coach Alicia Um’s advice to keep hitting the fairways, keep hitting the greens to give herself opportunities for birdies.
“I had been struggling pretty much all day but had managed to play the back nine a little bit better than I had previous in the week,” Joh said.
Joh followed Um’s advice to the tee on Hole 18, a par-4 455-yard finale punctuated with a left fairway bunker. After hitting the fairway and then the green, Joh was still left with a nasty 30-foot putt on the green.
“(I) made probably the best putt that I had in the entire tournament,” Joh said. “It just happened to go in.”
USC’s Jennifer Song, was in the lead to win the individual tournament, sealed the Trojans fate when she double-bogied the last hole.
UCLA’s Kono tied for 16th after carding 77 (+5) in the final round. She totaled 298 (+10) in the tournament. Joh posted 74 (+2) on Friday, totaling 300 (+12) and tying for 25th. Sophomore Glory Yang saw her ranking rise on the leaderboard after coming in with the Bruins’ lowest score of the day, a respectable 73 (+1), which moved her up to 32nd for the tournament. Junior Sydnee Michaels’ 75 (+3) put her in a tie for 39th, posting a total score of 304 (+16).
“The course is definitely a very challenging course,” Joh said. “This entire week it’s almost like we were all playing a little scared, with the exception of Maria and that 66, which was an amazing round. Our problem was we were out there and we were scared of hitting our ball sideways, so we just went out there and babied our ball on the course, and two-putt. We didn’t go out there with an aggressive, go-get-’em mentality.”
Joh and Kono both said that UCLA, as a team, had the most trouble with the par-5’s on the course.
“Other teams were playing the par-5’s under par,” Joh said. “One of the days we had nine bogies on the par-5’s between the five girls on the team. Par-5’s are birdie holes, and that was not acceptable at all.”
Kono said that though the team was pretty disappointed that it didn’t win, it was happy to have edged USC for second.
“Just go back out there next year, hopefully we’ll have another shot at it,” Kono said.
Unfortunately for the Bruins, next year will not include Joh and Uribe, who will be leaving UCLA following this season to pursue professional careers.
“I literally think we could have filled the Sunset Rec Pool with the tears we shed,” Joh said. “A lot of it for me was me being a senior and that was my last tournament and basically my last chance at a national championship. And for coach ““ she told us that this was the best team she had ever coached, not because of the playing or the talent but just how well we got along and how well we supported each other. I don’t think I’ve ever played on a team that was as close as we were this year. I think that just made it that more difficult to swallow that loss.”
Uribe said that although it would have been better if UCLA had won, she had a good time out on the course.
“We had a chance on the last day to win,” Uribe said. “We got paired up with our best friends from college from ASU and USC. It was special. We really enjoyed the week. Even if we weren’t having a good day, we were out there smiling and having a good time because we knew we were going to miss this team. It was a really nice golf course and I don’t see a better setting to finish my college career.”
The second place finish at the NCAA Championship capped an otherwise remarkable season that featured seven victories in 11 starts, matching a UCLA record.
“It’s pretty exciting,” Uribe said. “We’re really proud with what we did even if we didn’t win the national championship. We had a really good season. At the end of the day it comes to one tournament but we don’t see it that way. We’re a pretty special group that won seven tournaments.”
Four Bruins also earned All-America honors from the National Golf Coaches Association. Kono and Uribe made first-team, Yang was named second-team, and Joh earned honorable mention. Uribe, Kono, and Michaels were also selected to the Central Region team.