The skies opened up on New Orleans this weekend, drenching a field of competitors that included the nation’s top four women’s golf teams. It forced the cancellation of Monday’s competition and severely shortened UCLA’s practice round. The team, ranked No. 25 nationally, was forced to play blind on a course they’d never seen before – against competitors who’d had a full round of practice.
“We didn’t really get much out of the practice round … so we started at a slight disadvantage (compared to the competition),” said senior Tiffany Lua. “Also, this was our first time playing the course, while most other teams had played there before.”
Despite this, the Bruins were able to excel at the 2013 Allstate Sugar Bowl Intercollegiate Golf Championship in New Orleans.
Redshirt senior Lee Lopez hit 142 (-2) to lead the team to a total score of 580, tying with USC for first place.
In a relatively uncommon occurrence, both teams agreed to a one-hole playoff to decide the tournament champion rather than ending the event in a draw. In the playoff, USC won by one stroke.
“We definitely want to beat (USC) and they definitely want to beat us, so it’s generally very competitive between the two teams,” said coach Carrie Forsyth. “We don’t like to lose to them – that’s for sure.”
In the playoff, Trojan golfer Sophia Popov’s birdie made the difference over the Bruins, who hit even par on the hole.
It was yet another chapter in the back-and-forth competition between the schools, which saw UCLA defeat USC by nine strokes in the Northrop Grumman Regional Challenge earlier this month.
Despite not winning the tournament, Lopez’s success in New Orleans was the indication of months of hard work, as she had spent almost the entire fall and winter retooling her swing. Though she met initial adversity, she stuck with the change, practicing her stroke throughout the winter break.
“We’ve been practicing really hard this past week, and I’ve been doing extra work on my own,” Lopez said, “So it was great to see the changes that I made pay off in an actual competition.”
The tournament was the second after Lua’s return from a wrist injury that sidelined her for the entire fall season. She hit 143 (-1), finishing in a tie for fifth place. Lua’s presence has been crucial to the team’s recent success, as they’ve placed first or tied for first in both tournaments since her return from injury.
Her impact on the team is immense, according to Forsyth, and she helps the team coalesce in a multitude of ways.
“(Lua has a) tremendous impact. Tremendous. It’s hard to explain how much it means to have a player of her caliber and her consistency in the lineup,” Forsyth said. “It just takes a lot of pressure off of everybody so (they’re) able to perform, relax and just go out there and play.”
With Lua back, the Bruins are again a force to be reckoned with, and they expect to perform well in their next tournament, the Bruin Wave Invitational on March 4.
As co-hosts, UCLA will be playing on a familiar course, a marked improvement over this week.
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