The mission, hardly impossible, has already started. The UCLA
women’s golf team travelled to Bend, Ore., last week knowing
that if it was to repeat as champions, it would have to come on the
hallowed grounds at the Sunriver Resort. Invited to participate at
the Fall Preview, a tournament for top teams in the country to play
the course that will host the NCAA championships next spring, the
Bruins came, they saw, but they hardly conquered. Entering the
54-hole tournament as the top-ranked team in the country, UCLA
finished in a disappointing seventh place, compiling a team score
of 24-over par. The Bruins finished 18 shots behind
tournament-champion Duke, the first meeting between the two teams
in what blossomed into an intense rivalry this past spring.
“We weren’t very happy with our overall
performance,” coach Carrie Forsyth said. “I guess we
were a little tired,” sophomore Hannah Jun added. But even
though UCLA didn’t put its best foot forward, the team was
relatively unconcerned about its showing. Instead players and
Forsyth alike felt they didn’t learn as much as they wanted
to about the course, which stifled them for all three days of
competition. When they return to Sunriver in late May,
they’ll find narrower fairways, harsher rough, and rock-hard
greens. “We went into the Fall Preview with the intention of
trying our best to understand how to play the golf course,”
Forsyth said. “And we definitely struggled with that. The
course appears so benign, but it’s not.” While for most
of last year it was senior Charlotte Mayorkas or sophomore Hannah
Jun staking the Bruins to the top of the leaderboard, it was the
newest Bruin that handled Sunriver’s challenge with ease.
Standout freshman Amie Cochran, Forsyth’s most highly touted
recruit for the 2004 class, finished the tournament at 2-over par,
tying for eighth place. Cochran, who won the U.S. Women’s
Amateur stroke-play competition earlier this summer in
Pennsylvania, is no stranger to the limelight. Along with true
freshman Vanessa Brockett, not only does Forsyth think her youngest
golfers will be a mainstay in the starting lineup, she expects them
to be the backbone of this team. “They’ve earned their
spots straight up,” Forsyth said. “We threw them into
the fire quickly, and because we have a small team, everyone is
going to get a ton of playing time. But more than anything else,
I’ve been pleased with their poise. They’ve totally
stepped up.”
MEN’S FALL PREVIEW: While the women are
pegged to compete for the championship again in 2005, the
men’s golf team is expected to take its lumps with the
departure of 80 percent of its starting lineup. In a 16-team field,
the men tied for 12th place at the Ping/GolfWeek Fall Preview
hosted by Loyola College at Caves Valley near Baltimore, Md. on
Monday, posting a final-round team score of 13-over par to finish
the 54-hole tournament at 44-over par. Senior John Poucher was the
team’s highest finisher, shooting 4-over par to end up in
12th place.
MEN V. WOMEN AT GOLD RUSH: The UCLA
women’s golf team competed against a field of 29 all-male
teams at a new tournament conceived by men’s golf coach O.D.
Vincent. While the men took home their first tournament victory of
the year, the women came away in 23rd place, and more importantly
took something away from the tournament much more valuable than a
trophy. Confidence. “They came out of it with a new
perspective of the differences between the men’s and
women’s game,” Forsyth said of her players. “It
was a grueling type of tournament, but it was ultimately good for
their confidence.”