UCLA men’s golf will play at the Sagamore Club in Noblesville, Ind., on May 14-16 for the NCAA Regional.
This is UCLA’s 23rd consecutive appearance in the regional championship. If they succeed in advancing to the NCAA Tournament, it will mark the 13th-straight appearance in the tournament, establishing a school record. The Bruins’ most recent regional title was in 2013, and have won five in total.
The club will play to a par of 72 over 7,173 yards. The top five teams and one individual from each regional will advance to NCAA Tournament, which will be held from May 29 to June 3 at the Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, Fla.
The national tournament begins with a 54-hole stroke play and after the third round, the top eight teams will advance to matchplay. Also, the top 40 individual competitors will continue in a stroke play for the individual championship title.
The Bruins are entering the regionals as a No. 3 seed behind Illinois and Oregon. No. 1 seed Illinois, with a total of seven team wins, is coming into its eighth consecutive appearance in the NCAA Regional and its current seeding is the highest in its program history. On the other hand, No. 2 seed Oregon came out as a second place in the recent Pac-12 Men’s Golf Championship.
The lineup for UCLA includes two seniors – Matt Pinizzotto and Manav Shah – and three juniors – Jonathan Garrick, Lorens Chan and Jake Knapp.
Garrick leads the team with a scoring average of 70.8 along with Shah who has a scoring average of 71.8. Garrick recently earned his spot on Men’s All-Pac-12 first team while his fellow classmate Chan appeared on the second team and Shah on the honorable mention team.
This season, the team earned four victories in total and is coming out as eighth in the most recent event, the Pac-12 Championship.
Compiled by Julie Song, Bruin Sports contributor.