Men’s golf heads to Hawaii for intercollegiate tournament
Freshman Pedro Figueiredo and the Bruins begin the UH-Hilo Intercollegiate in Hawaii today. The Bruins remain confident, despite facing tough competition.
By Daily Bruin Staff
Feb. 2, 2010 10:07 p.m.
The term “student-athlete” took on a whole new meaning for the UCLA men’s golf team during their short offseason.
In an attempt to keep his golfers motivated in the classroom, coach Derek Freeman promised exemption from qualifying for today’s spring season opening tournament at the UH-Hilo Intercollegiate to the three players with the highest grade point average from fall quarter. Both international freshmen Pedro Figueiredo and Pontus Widegren earned the coveted exemption along with fellow freshman Bobby Lange. Rounding out the five-member squad for the Bruins will be sophomores Alex Shi Yup Kim and Gregor Main.
“One of our priorities is to make sure that our guys are successful in the classroom as much as they are successful on the golf course,” Freeman said. “Playing in this event, which is basically a week in Hawaii, is a privilege and (the team) had to take care of their schoolwork.”
The Bruins will head to the Mauna Lani Resort North Course to face some of the stiffest competition they will see all season in a tournament that was listed in Golfweek Magazine’s top five tournaments of the spring season. The tournament will be played in the traditional five-count-four format, where the top four scores from the team of five are counted in the team’s overall score.
Visiting a course for the first time, however, Freeman realizes the challenges that unfamiliarity can present.
“None of our guys have seen it before,” he said. “It’s a typical Hawaii golf course with a lot of lava and a lot of wind so it can get really difficult. The grass is a little different so we have to get used to that but from what we’ve seen, it’s a great golf course but a very challenging golf course.”
The Bruins, however, are confident entering a field of 11 top-20 teams today with 13 top-20 individuals.
“We like to play against good teams all the time but we have a lot of good players too and I think we have a pretty good shot at winning this tournament and a lot of tournaments this year,” Main said.
Headlining the field are No. 1 Oklahoma State and No. 2 Stanford. The No. 14 Bruins will also see other familiar Pac-10 foes, including No. 6 Arizona State, No. 12 Washington, No. 13 Oregon State and No. 21 USC.
Kim insisted that the Bruins’ youthful lineup of three freshmen and two sophomores isn’t going to hold them back from competing.
“We’ve played with these teams in the fall and it will be a good challenge but we’ve put in a lot of hard work and I think we’ll be able to keep up,” Kim said.
Above all, Freeman said that he and his team are just excited to get out and prove that they can compete.
“Our guys are excited to get back into competition again,” he said. They’ve worked hard, I feel very confident, and we’re really excited to tee it up.”
