Women’s golf completes Sun Devil Winter Classic performance in 5th place

The Bruins were one hole away from another top-three finish.

In a field full of Pac-12 teams, UCLA women’s golf finished in fifth place at the Sun Devil Winter Classic. As a team, it carded a 6-over 294 on day one, a 5-over 293 on day two, and a 12-over 300 on the final day, finishing behind USC, Arizona State, Arizona and Oregon.

However, the Bruins may have finished higher without dropping as many strokes on the final hole of the tournament. Junior Simar Singh tallied a quintuple bogey on hole 18, the 323-yard par-4, dropping the team down two spots from a potential third-place finish down to fifth.

“We had a couple players who played really well and a couple that didn’t play well,” said coach Carrie Forsyth. “It’s sort of a mixed bag I think in that area. … Some things looked better – we’re just trying to manage the challenges we have right now.”

Among some of the low scores shot by the Bruins was sophomore Emma Spitz’s 6-under-par performance for the week. Spitz’s 6-under-par performance marked some of UCLA’s low scores on the week. In the 54-hole span, Spitz only recorded two scores of bogey or worse. Her performance was good for second individually – her third consecutive top-three finish – and three strokes off of the individual winner, Arizona State’s Linn Grant.

“I just hit a lot of greens, I just kept two-putting all the time,” Spitz said. “I only missed four or five greens all week. Just hitting the green and two-putting all the time makes it a lot easier.”

Spitz credited her good stroke on the greens to a new putter in the bag for the week which she said is lighter and helped her gain a better flow with her rhythm.

Following Spitz were sophomores Annabel Wilson and Emilie Paltrinieri. Wilson, who finished 3 over par for the tournament, carded rounds of 72, 74 and 73, good for tied for 11th place overall. She only had one double bogey or worse the whole week.

Wilson explained the course layout this week was more wide open and more forgiving of misses than previous courses.

The course wasn’t that tight – if you hit an offline drive, you were only in the desert,” Wilson said. “It wasn’t a big-numbered course compared to last week. I had much more control of the golf ball off the tee … I was shaping it nicely, putting myself in a good place.”

Paltrinieri finished 6 over par overall, recording rounds of 73, 75 and 74 to finish tied for 19th individually. There was a 14-stroke drop-off from Paltrinieri to the next Bruin, Singh, who scored 20 over par, good for 48th individually. Junior Phoebe Yue rounded out UCLA’s lineup with a 53rd place 33-over tournament.

Forsyth said Singh and Yue are adjusting their swings and noted how hard it can be to deal with swing mechanics while competing. But because the Bruins currently only have six active players on the roster, they have to be traveling with the team for tournaments.

“They have some changes that they are working on,” Forsyth said. “Usually you have time to work on things but this year given the circumstances and the fact we have only six players, they have to play through them and it’s not easy. We have eight on the team, but two haven’t come back for reasons related to COVID-19. It just makes it a little more challenging.”

After back-to-back tournaments in the last two weeks, UCLA will now have the rest of February off from competition before its next event. On March 1, it will be hosting the Bruin Wave Invitational in Somis, California.

Although this week’s tournament recently concluded, preparation for the next tournament is already underway. Wilson said the team will take a look at the next golf course this weekend.

“We can just reflect after this week and see where our misses are and then work on that,” Wilson said. “(We will) also get a good look at Saticoy over the weekend and plan for what it demands. From what coach has said, it’s a tough golf course where you need to be sharp around the greens.”