Freshmen help women’s golf achieve 4th-place finish in season’s opening match
Freshman Caroline Canales led the way for No. 12 UCLA women’s golf at the Match In the Desert on Sunday and Monday as the Bruins took home a fourth-place finish. Canales tied for 10th individually with a 1-under 143. (Courtesy of UCLA Athletics)
By Joseph Crosby
Jan. 27, 2022 12:23 p.m.
The Bruins’ freshmen led the charge in their opening match of the spring season.
No. 12 UCLA women’s golf finished fourth out of seven teams at the Match In the Desert in Gold Canyon, Arizona, on Sunday and Monday, scoring a 1-over 577. Freshman Caroline Canales tied for 10th individually with a team-leading 1-under 143, marking her first under-par tournament of the season.
Canales said she was able to use the time off over winter break to focus on her own game.
“This past break I was able to go home and really work on some things in my game that I felt like needed to be improved,” Canales said. “I addressed some swing issues and some putting issues that I was having during the fall season.”
Canales wasn’t the only underclassman who finished in the top 20, as freshman Zoe Antoinette Campos posted her second-best score of the season, finishing 2-over 146 and tying for 17th overall.
Coach Carrie Forsyth said she enjoyed Canales’ competitiveness and hard work, while adding that Campos has made significant strides in honing in on the mental side of her game.
“(Zoe’s) growing up, and she’s definitely showing really great improvement in her mental game and her mental state on the golf course,” Forsyth said. “I’m anticipating that she’s going to have a really solid spring and a better spring than she did in the fall because of those changes.”
The three other members of the starting lineup all posted scores within two strokes of each other. Redshirt freshman Alessia Nobilio finished tied for 23rd at 3-over 147, while juniors Emilie Paltrinieri and Emma Spitz finished 1-over 145 and 2-over 146, respectively. Spitz shot a 2-over 74 on the first day of the tournament
Spitz, however, finished even on day two and secured her fourth consecutive top-20 finish. With Spitz not atop the Bruins’ leaderboard for the first time since Oct. 6, the junior said she was impressed with her freshmen teammates over the course of the tournament.
“Now that they’ve been here for a while, I think they’ve kind of adapted to (collegiate golf),” Spitz said. “Especially Caroline, she played really well. … Once they really feel comfortable in this new environment, they’re going to have pretty good tournaments.”
Despite the performances from Campos and Canales, Spitz said she noticed issues in the short game across the team and added that those struggles showed what she needed to work on in the coming weeks before the next tournament.
“I need to feel more comfortable on the greens and really trust my putting,” Spitz said. “I think that was better at the end of the fall. I was putting a little better than I did this week.”
Forsyth said the design of the course on a mountain made it difficult to read greens, adding that the team will put some extra focus into putting before its next tournament.
“I feel like that was probably the biggest issue was matching the speed that you hit a putt with the line that you choose,” Forsyth said. “That was certainly our weakness this week.”
UCLA will play its second tournament of the championship season at the Lamkin Invitational on Feb. 14.
