Big Ten championship hangover can present itself in many forms.
UCLA men’s golf finished ninth after shooting 16-over 856 at the Fighting Irish Classic across Sunday and Monday at Warren Golf Course in Notre Dame, Indiana. The finish marks the squad’s third-straight team placement outside the top seven to open the season, as the Bruins were unable to replicate their seven-under par victory in Indiana from last year.
“Sometimes in golf, you need some things to go your way to get some momentum, and we weren’t making the putts that we needed to make to keep that momentum going,” said coach Armen Kirakossian. “We had some untimely errors that got us off our rhythm a little bit.”
Despite the Bruins’ familiarity with Warren Golf Course, the venue still presented difficulties. Several greens on the course feature back-to-front slopes, so any approach shot that did not carry far enough would imminently roll downhill and off the putting green.
No team collectively secured a par score, with the victor California and runner-up Texas A&M scoring one-over and two-over par, respectively.
One Bruin, however, remained undeterred.
Sophomore Josh Kim – the former Big Ten Freshman of the Year and All-Big Ten First Team honoree – posted a one-over par performance across three rounds, catapulting to a tie for No. 15.
“My game felt pretty solid overall,” Kim said. “I was having a tough front nine, and I was able to shift my energy around and finish strong and ended up going from 39th place to 15th place in the last mile.”
Kim shot a team-best 70.9 scoring average over 10 tournaments as a freshman, cementing himself as the team’s ace throughout their stint in Indiana and beyond.
Round two presented challenges for the Bruins, with the team collectively shooting 21-over par – placing them within the bottom six teams in the late afternoon of Sunday.
Sophomore Tyler Loree, who placed outside the team’s top four scorers with a seven-over par second round, bounced back as the team’s leader in the third round with a birdie.
“That’s a testament to the competitor that Tyler is,” Kirakossian said. “He was really disappointed with the way he played in the afternoon round. You could tell that he really wanted to come back.”
Comments are closed.