Going into Tuesday’s final round at the Battle at the Beach, the UCLA men’s golf team found themselves four shots behind the leader.
This time, however, the Bruins fired a 348 (-7) on the final day to take home the championship trophy, their first of the season. The Bruins have had trouble closing out on the last day of tournaments this season.
Sophomore Alex Shi Yup Kim made his only birdie of the day on the par-5 17th, his last hole. Kim had unknowingly just clinched the win for the Bruins.
“All of my teammates were watching on the green and I didn’t know exactly what my putt meant, but I knew it was pretty big,” Kim said.
After the scores were tallied, it was the Bruins coming out on top with an overall score of 1,055 (-10) outlasting both Arkansas and Washington by a single stroke at the north course of Newport Beach’s Pelican Hill Golf Club. Arkansas’ David Lingmerth and Washington’s Chris Williams tied for the overall individual title.
Freshman Pontus Widegren was the Bruins’ top finisher at 206 (-7), tied for third. Widegren moved 17 spots up the leaderboard by carding a 64 (-7) on Tuesday, a round that saw him hole out from the fairway on the par-4 13th.
“He played incredible golf all week long,” UCLA coach Derek Freeman said of Widegren. “It’s exciting to see him play well because he works so hard and he deserves it.”
Widegren was quick to give credit to his teammates’ consistent play. Kim finished at two-under par, tied for 11th, and fellow sophomore Gregor Main followed close behind shooting one-under par, tied for 15th.
“Every single one of us played at least one really good round,” Widegren said. “We felt really prepared and we were really excited to play.”
The Bruins were forced to count five scores in the six-count-five format as opposed to the more traditional five-count-four format, in which only four scores are counted.
“In this type of event, you have to have depth in your team to be successful. You need the end of your lineup to play well and we had some guys step up and do just that,” Freeman said.
Junior Connor Driscoll, playing in his first tournament after dealing with academic ineligibility issues, finished at two-over par and freshman Mario Clemens fell back to five-over par after a 68 on the first day of the tournament.