Coach Carrie Forsyth was in her office with several members of the UCLA women’s golf team when the call came.
The 2010 regional bids were announced, and the Bruins couldn’t be happier.
Rather than crossing time zones to play in the Central or East Regional tournaments, the Bruins will stay in the Golden State this year. The top-ranked Bruins will head to Palo Alto to play in the 2010 West Regional as the No. 1 seed at the Stanford Golf Course.
“We were really ecstatic to stay in the west and go up to Stanford, a course we were really familiar with,” Forsyth said.
Forsyth added that she was expecting to stay in the West for regionals after she saw that the Bruins were ranked No. 1 in both polls that determine regional bids following the Pac-10 championship last week.
“There was pretty much no way they couldn’t keep us in the West given the fact that we were No. 1 in both of the polls,” she said.
According to Forsyth, playing in Palo Alto this year will minimize travel time. Because both the East Regional and the NCAA Championship are held in North Carolina, flying to the East Coast and back twice over a span of 17 days can be tough on the golfers. Traveling to Indiana, the site of the Central Regional this year, wouldn’t have been much easier.
“On top of that we get to stay in school an extra day because we can travel up on Tuesday night and don’t have to miss another day of class, so that helps too,” Forsyth said. “In addition, we get preferred practice-round tee times and we’re playing a course we’re really familiar with (rather than) trying to learn a new golf course we’ve never seen.”
Twenty-four teams will battle for the top eight spots and a trip to the NCAA Championships that will take place May 18-21. The field that the Bruins will be facing includes Pac-10 champion Arizona and Southeastern Conference champion Alabama, as well as conference rivals Stanford and California.
UCLA, the two-time Central Regional defending champion, last played at the Stanford Golf Course in the Stanford Intercollegiate, where the Bruins finished second in October.
“It is an amazing golf course,” Forsyth said. “It just kind of demands a little bit of everything. It is a great course: It demands good ball-striking; the greens are subtle and a little bit tricky sometimes; the grass we’re familiar with; and overall it’s one of the better college courses. And we’re very fortunate to get to play it for regionals and also when we get to play it during the year.”
The Bruins have won five regional titles during Forsyth’s tenure, including wins at Stanford in 2002 and 2004. They have earned nine consecutive trips to the NCAA championships and have captured the last eight podium finishes at regionals.
Forsyth said that UCLA’s No. 1 seed will not affect the team’s approach to the tournament.
“The seeding is really a nice thing based on our performance throughout the season,” she said. “But you go into an event ““ it doesn’t matter what you’re seeded. At the end of the day, you just have to play well. … For us, we’re really looking forward to going to regionals as an opportunity to win another tournament, rather than just trying to qualify (for the NCAA championships). We want to set the bar high and play really well and sharpen up those last few things that cost us the Pac-10 title.”