With less than two weeks remaining until the Pac-10 Championships, the UCLA men’s golf team will head north to Santa Cruz for its last regular season tournament of the year.
The Western Intercollegiate, hosted by San Jose State, will take place this weekend at Pasatiempo Golf Club.
The tournament features one of the weaker fields that the No. 5 Bruins will see all year. The only other top-10 team competing is No. 4 Oregon. The Ducks took home the U.S. Intercollegiate title last week while the Bruins finished in a tie for fifth.
“The field isn’t very strong but I think it will be a good chance for us to get ready for Pac-10s and the postseason,” sophomore Gregor Main said.
He added that the weaker field wouldn’t make for a less intense playing environment.
“We’re still going to go at it as we would any other tournament,” Main said. “Whether it be there or nationals or wherever, we’re just going to go play and do our best.”
The tournament will replicate the Pac-10 Championships in terms of format, following the atypical six-count-five format in which six players compete and only five scores are attributed to the team total. Bruin golf fans can expect to see the same top five players that have competed in the last two events: Main, fellow sophomore Alex Shi Yup Kim, and freshmen Mario Clemens, Pedro Figueiredo, and Pontus Widegren. Joining the standard top five will be junior Connor Driscoll. Driscoll is the oldest player on this young Bruins’ roster and the only remaining player form the 2008 national championship team.
The Bruins are also facing one of the quickest turnarounds they have seen all season. They returned from the U.S Intercollegiate Tuesday night and have to tee it up for a college amateur practice round Friday morning, in which the general public can pay to play with the collegiate golfers.
Following the College-AM on Friday, there will be two 18-hole rounds played Saturday and one round played Sunday.
Main said that he does not mind playing two rounds in one day.
“I like it because if you get on a roll, then you can just keep going and you don’t have to wait,” he said. “I think it’s good for us since we’ve done it a bunch this year I think we’re used to it now and we should be fine.”
Main does not think that the Bruins will still have their fifth place finish at the U.S. Intercollegiate on their minds as they prepare for the Western Intercollegiate.
“I think we’re all going to look at it as a new tournament and just try to forget about the last one and move on and learn from our mistakes,” Main said.