Women’s golf loses lead, places third
By Rebecca Lee
April 26, 2009 10:43 p.m.
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.”
