UCLA men’s golf, a team that won one tournament all year, needed two birdies on the 18th green at the NCAA regionals to squeak into the championship tournament. The Bruins entered the NCAA championship tournament with a low seed and were just happy to be there.
By how their season had gone, it would be hard to imagine that these Bruins would fare well in the tournament, let alone place in the top eight to advance to the quarterfinals, the second stage of the tournament. Yet that is exactly what they did, earning the sixth seed for match play in the quarterfinals.
On Tuesday, after enduring rain and wind that became so bad that play was suspended on Friday, UCLA men’s golf found itself in that surreal position: the quarterfinals of the NCAA men’s golf championship at the Prairie Dunes Country Club in Hutchinson, Kan., against LSU.
However, the Bruins’ tournament run would end there, falling to the Tigers in a match play score of four to one. UCLA sophomore Lorens Chan scored the only win for the Bruins against the Tigers in that quarterfinals match.
Senior Anton Arboleda, who played in his last collegiate golf match on Tuesday, and sophomore Jonathan Garrick both contributed significantly to the Bruins’ success in Kansas.
A team that had been tried by weather and plagued by inconsistency all year overcame all of that and more to finish where no one expected them to be – in the quarterfinals of the championship tournament.
Compiled by Brandon Dupre, Bruin Sports contributor.