Last season, the UCLA men’s golf team surprised the college golf world by erasing a seven-shot deficit in the final round of the NCAA Central Regional to capture the victory as the No. 4 seed.
This year, the No. 6 Bruins are heading into the NCAA East Regional as the No. 1 seed and a clear favorite to take home their second consecutive region crown. While the Bruins do have the luxury of being the No. 1 seed, they don’t have the luxury of staying close to home.
The NCAA East Regional will be held at The Course at Yale in New Haven, Conn. If last year’s win in Kentucky is any indication, the Bruins shouldn’t be worried about traveling far from home, even though the majority of the tournaments that the Bruins have played in have been in California, Arizona and Nevada.
“It will be nice to be the No. 1 seed out there, and I know it’s a long ways away but I’m sure we’ll be fine because last year, we went to Kentucky and won so we know what to do,” sophomore Gregor Main said of his team’s chances.
Of the 14 teams competing in the regional, the top five finishers will advance to the NCAA Championship Tournament in Chattanooga, Tenn. The Bruins have qualified for the championship seven consecutive years and won the title in 2008.
Although finishing in the top five appears to be an easy task for the top-seeded Bruins, freshman Pontus Widegren said he and his teammates aren’t thinking about the NCAA Championship.
“I haven’t really thought that much about the NCAAs yet,” Widegren said. “We’re going to Connecticut now with the goal to win, so we’ll do what we can over there and see what happens.”
The Course at Yale is an older style course that the Bruins are unfamiliar with. According to Main, no team is familiar with the course. The situation is very different from some of their other tournaments, in which the Bruins have played on other teams’ home courses, like the Pac-10 Championships at ASU’s Karsten Golf Course.
“I think it’s a pretty even playing field out there. It’s nobody’s home course so nobody will have a huge advantage,” Main said.
Widegren added that he and his teammates have versatile playing styles that should be able to adjust to the course.
“I don’t think it’s going to be a disadvantage at all,” Widegren said. “I think all of us are very all-around in our golf games, so I think we’re going to adapt to it very quickly and we’re going to be excited about playing something a little different.”
Other teams competing in the Bruins’ regional include No. 7 Texas and No. 15 South Carolina. The tournament will follow the traditional five-count-four format in which the lowest of five scores is dropped.
Some tournaments that the Bruins have played in this year, like the Pac-10 Championships, featured a six-count-five format. The five-count-four format could prove to be an advantage to the Bruins as they fired a disappointing final round in the Pac-10 Championships to finish in eighth.
The strength of the Pac-10 at the national level is evident: The conference sent nine of its teams to the regionals. Oregon, Washington and Stanford are also top seeds in their respective regions, while Arizona State and USC are both seeded second.
Widegren thinks that a strong finish will be key if the Bruins want to win another regional title.
“In the two tournaments that we won, we had really good last rounds,” Widegren said. “We played the course really smart and took advantage of our chances.”
“Our goal in every tournament is to be in the hunt on the back nine in the last round,” he added. “If we can do that, it will be a lot of fun.”