Women’s golf loses lead, places third

The Pac-10 Championships couldn’t have started any more solid for the top-ranked UCLA women’s golf team, but the Bruins just couldn’t capitalize.

The team seized the lead, posting a first-round score of 291 (+7), but Arizona State surged to the top of the leaderboard in round two after recording a team score of 281 (-3) and never looked back.

Bad turned to worse for the Bruins when defending champion USC climbed ahead of UCLA during the final round with a team score of 278 (-6), while the Bruins came in at 285 (+1).

At the end of the three days of play, the Women of Troy took second in the tournament at Stanford, totaling a team score of 861 (+9). UCLA landed in third with 864 (+12), and the Sun Devils ran away with the title, shooting an even par 852.

“I thought we played pretty well,” coach Carrie Forsyth said. “We had some good scores today. It’s not like we went out there and were completely terrible and didn’t win.”

Individually, sophomore Maria Jose Uribe tied for fifth at 212 (-1) after shooting a 69 (-2) in the final round. After a rocky first round, sophomore Glory Yang finished the tournament at even par, trailing Uribe by only one stroke. Yang came in seventh, posting a final-round score of 68 (-3).

Forsyth said that Yang made a lot of putts, including a long putt on the 18th hole to save par, and Forsyth said that Yang was in contention to win.

Freshman Stephanie Kono tied for 16th with a final score of 220 (+7). Senior Tiffany Joh and Sydnee Michaels were tied in 24th after posting 225 (+12) for the tournament.

All-American Joh had been absent from the UCLA lineup the last two team tournaments. She missed the UCF Challenge because of a team qualifier, and she played in the LPGA Kraft Nabisco Championship, which coincided with the PING/ASU Invitational.

“You’ve got to feel comfortable and get out there and feel good about your game,” Forsyth said. “If you’re questioning your game or not feeling comfortable, it’s going to be hard to score, that’s the bottom line. At the end of the day, I think this week was really beneficial for her and for us.”

Forsyth said that despite the third-place finish, she feels good about the progress the Bruins made this week.

“Obviously, we wish we could have played better than we did,” Forsyth said. “Our goal is to peak in May. It’s not fun to finish third, but at the same time I don’t feel that we did terrible out there.”

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