Ever since the Fall Preview tournament in September, the University of New Mexico’s Championship Golf Course has been transforming. The rough grown out, the greens trimmed to a quicker length, the holes pulled back ““ every little tweak to make the golf course more daunting.
Now the UCLA women’s golf team will return to that same Albuquerque golf course this week to compete for the NCAA Championship.
Yet, what was once a “scoreable” course, in the Bruins’ words, will be stunningly more difficult this time.
“The hardest part is making the adjustments,” All-American junior Tiffany Joh said. “I don’t necessarily think that this time around it’s going to be as much as a birdie-shooting course, and I think that just being patient out there and not getting upset or disappointed if we don’t get out to a good start will pretty much be the key to whoever wins the tournament.”
The Bruins started a week-long NCAA Championship marathon when they departed from Westwood on Saturday and played two practice rounds.
They tee off the first of four rounds today, and the tournament will wrap up Friday. They used their practice rounds to adjust to the course’s changes.
“The main thing is to get a good game plan and figure out how to play this course, and just relax and play,” coach Carrie Forsyth said.
Despite the course’s subtle yet disastrous-if-ignored modifications, Joh said that the most testing part of the tournament is the players’ endurance.
“It’s the longest tournament that we play,” Joh said. “Not getting ahead of ourselves and taking it one day, one hole, one shot at a time ““ I think that’s the biggest challenge of it.”
Forsyth also said the course’s tendency to be windy and its firm greens are obstacles the Bruins will have to be aware of.
“We got used to that in Texas,” Forsyth said. “We had some wind there and some pretty firm greens, so I think that was good preparation for us.”
The Bruins are coming off a crucial victory at the NCAA Central Regional, held at the University of Texas Golf Club May 8-10, where the Bruins’ 3-under-par score of 861 as a team defeated No. 6 Purdue by 10 strokes and third-place No. 9 Denver by 21 strokes.
“It was still a strong field even though ‘SC wasn’t in it,” Joh said. “Ideally you want to win with all the best teams in it. But a win is a win, so we’re going into NCAAs with a lot of confidence.”
The No. 1 Trojans have been on a hot streak lately. They have won three tournaments in a row, including the West Regional, where No. 5 Arizona State finished second. No. 4 Florida upset No. 3 Duke to win the East Regional.
The No. 2 Bruins are definite contenders for the championship title, but they will have to get past these teams.
“We played some really great rounds last week; the girls are playing really well,” Forsyth said. “We’re hoping to peak at the right time. So I feel like we have a really good shot.”
The regional victory allowed UCLA to clinch its eighth consecutive NCAA championship berth. The team last won the national title in 2004 and placed third in 2007.
“Last year we came into nationals ranked 10th or something, (so) it’s really nice to be part of a team that has a legitimate chance of winning it,” Joh said.
The lineup this week will feature Joh, freshmen Maria Jose Uribe and Glory Yang, junior Maiya Tanaka and sophomore Sydnee Michaels.
“I think they’re going to play great,” Forsyth said of Uribe and Yang, who will be playing in their first NCAA Championship. “These girls play tremendous at high-pressure events. For these golfers, it’s just another important tournament.”
They aren’t strangers to intense competition. Uribe, who tied for first at the Central Regional, won the U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship in August. Yang advanced to the second round of the U.S. Women’s Amateur Publinks.
“I was thinking of (the NCAA Tournament) today,” Uribe said. “It’s kind of weird. Nationals is a really big thing, I guess I’m just going to approach it as any other LPGA major or U.S. Amateur or any other major tournaments that we play.
“I’ll basically do the same thing I did at regionals because it worked.”
Uribe added that she likes UCLA’s chances this week.
“Four wins ““ that says a lot about the team,” she said. “We’re playing really good, (especially) now we have Maiya ““ that was the part that was lacking during the year, the fifth player. We’re in the top teams, so we have a chance, (and) we’re going to go in and play our game to win this championship.”
Forsyth said she expects the Bruins to be focused when the tournament begins.
“Right now we’re more excited, just anxious to get going,” she said. “Once we get there, we’ll settle down, we (will) get calm and just be ready to play.”