In the second round of the NCAA Fall Preview, the No. 1 UCLA women’s golf team seized the lead and appeared poised to capture its first tournament victory of the season.
But sometime during the final round of the tournament was a missed putt or a poorly hit ball, and a couple of double-bogies later, the Bruins found themselves in a second-place tie at the end of the Fall Preview on Sunday at the Country Club of Landfall in Wilmington, N.C. ““ again.
This is their third second-place finish this season for the Bruins. They came in second in both of their first two tournaments of the season, including the Mason Rudolph Invitational in September and last week’s Stanford Intercollegiate.
“It’s obviously disappointing,” coach Carrie Forsyth said. “We had a really good chance to win today. We didn’t play that well today, we had a lot of mistakes coming down the stretch.”
Sophomore Stephanie Kono echoed Forsyth’s sentiments.
“I think with most of our team, a few things were a little off,” Kono said. “We lost by one stroke, that’s just one putt from one of us. I think maybe we made a few two many mistakes.”
Tied for fifth entering the final round, No. 13 Duke shot an even-par 288 in the third round to seize the tournament title. The Blue Devils beat the Bruins by one stroke, tallying 881 (+17) on the tournament. No. 6 Auburn also climbed the leaderboard with a third-round score of 288 (E) to tie with UCLA at second. At 889 (+25), second-ranked Arizona State recorded 297 (+9) in round three to come in fourth, and No. 18 Virginia at 891 (+27) posted 295 (+7) on the day to round out the top five.
A combination of brutal weather and tough course conditions caused the overall tournament scores to be higher than usual.
“The weather yesterday, we had some huge hard, hard rain that we had to play in for a while, and that made it really difficult,” Forsyth said.
Forsyth added that the pins were set extremely tough in round three, leading to some of the higher scores on the day.
“Even without the wind and the rain from yesterday, the course was still really tough. It’s just a really tough course,” Kono said. “So if you’re not sharp, it’s going to eat you up. The greens were pretty oscillating, it was pretty slick. Just because the greens were so big, the hole got cut in specific places where you have to hit it in the right spot or else it’s going to be really tough (to score).”
UCLA’s top finisher, Kono scored 73 (+1) in the final round to tie for fifth in the tournament.
“I think I played pretty consistently all three days,” she said. “Although my ball-striking wasn’t perfect, I managed to scramble a lot. It saved me.”
Sophomore Brianna Do and senior Sydnee Michaels tied for 20th with a total three-round score of 222 (+6). Do shot 74 (+2) and Michaels posted 75 (+3) on the day. Only one stroke behind Do and Michaels, freshman Tiffany Lua finished tied for 24th after registering 77 (+5) in the third round. Junior Glory Yang shot 81 (+9) in the final round to tie for 47th with a total score of 228 (+12).
“We’re obviously disappointed coming in second, but I think overall we’ve proven we’re the most consistent team out there, and I think the wins will come,” Forsyth said. “So we’re right there in contention, one shot today ““ that’s not much. We’re going to do better next time, for sure.”
While their first tournament win of the year still eludes the Bruins, Kono views the team’s second-place finishes positively.
“It shows that we’re obviously playing very consistently,” Kono said. “We lost to three different teams. I think we still ranked No. 1. … We have one more tournament to go in the fall and hopefully we can play well again. We’ll see what happens, but I think we’re saving our best stuff for the spring.”