They couldn’t complete the repeat.
After claiming the team title at last season’s Gifford Collegiate Championship, there was nothing this year for UCLA men’s golf, as it closed its fall season with a fourth-place finish.
Senior Jonathan Garrick finished fourth individually with a total score of 3-under par, following three co-winners with 4-under par. He was just one shot short of getting his second individual win of the season.
“I honestly didn’t feel that good,” Garrick said. “I wasn’t playing that good, but I just did a good job of managing and scoring well.”
Garrick steadily improved by one shot each round of the tournament. However, his bogey at the last hole of the last round cost him a spot as a co-winner.
“I basically did the same each day except my driving got a little bit better and saved me one shot each round,” Garrick said.
Another top scorer, freshman Cole Madey, led the team after the first round of the event with a 4-under par and placed himself in contention for the win. But his eagle and five birdies quickly faded away in the following rounds, countered by four bogeys and a double bogey.
“I just didn’t play as well,” Madey said. “I didn’t hit the right shot.”
Coach Derek Freeman said that he was happy to see individual players continuing their own games, but pointed out that the inconsistencies in scoring might be internal.
“It’s just not performing at the level that takes to be successful, you gotta do a really good job if you want to perform well here,” Freeman said. “We need to do a better job of managing our emotions.”
The Bruins will take a few days off before they start focusing on the weaknesses that the fall season revealed.
“After we rest, we will go over stats, get everybody lined up and continue to work on what they need to do,” Freeman said. “Then we will give them a game plan on what they need to do and start working hard.”
As for the more concise goals as a team, Freeman focused on shot matrix.
“We have to do a better job of shot matrix, which is just measuring our shots and understanding where we could hit them,” Freeman said. “We gotta spend the offseason working on that and I think that’s going to help us to better scores in the spring.”
With this mindset, the team will spend its offseason preparing for their first events in February.
“I think in the spring, we are going to come together a lot better,” Madey said.