This post was updated Oct. 23 9:33 p.m.

The Bruins are headed to the South once again for their third tournament of the year.

No. 20 UCLA women’s golf will be teeing it up at the East Lake Cup in Atlanta from Monday through Wednesday. Monday marks the blue and gold’s first time back to this tournament since 2016, when it took home a second-place finish in stroke play and a loss in the consolation of match play. This year, UCLA will compete against three other schools, including Pac-12 foe No. 6 Oregon.

The East Lake Cup differs from most of the Bruins’ other tournaments this season given the focus on match play rather than stroke play. The first round of the tournament will be stroke play to determine the matchups for the second and third rounds, which are scored based on match play rules.

Senior Annabel Wilson last played in a match play tournament at the U.S. Women’s Amateur this summer, where she was a semifinalist. She said she appreciates the atypical format.

“It is a format we don’t get to play often, so when we do, I really just enjoy it,” Wilson said. “It’s pretty much similar to stroke play. You just got to play your own game. It’s different in that the last kind of six holes – you have to look at your opponent and see what they are doing. That’s the only different thing.”

The Bruins’ lineup will include Wilson, senior Emilie Paltrinieri, redshirt sophomore Alessia Nobilio, and sophomores Zoe Antoinette Campos and Caroline Canales. This will be Campos’ second tournament back after recovering from a shoulder injury.

Coach Carrie Forsyth said she hopes Campos will feel more comfortable this week as she continues to bounce back.

“It is an overuse type of injury, that’s what it is,” Forsyth said. “You can take down the inflammation, and you can do all these things. As she uses it more and more and more, it’s always going to have that tendency to flare up.”

The blue and gold is coming off a fourth-place finish at the Blessings Collegiate Invitational. Individually, Canales recorded a top-15 finish – good for second on the team – at 8-over 224 with her best round on the third day when she shot a 1-over 73.

Canales said the Blessings tournament helped her identify a few areas of her game that needed improvement.

“The first (area) being my putting, especially because this upcoming tournament is match play,” Canales said. “Making crucial putts under pressure is really important. I’ve been doing a lot of performance putting games and putting drills and playing against my teammates a lot to simulate that feeling of putting under pressure.”

Although none of the players in the Bruin lineup have played at the East Lake Cup, the course hosts the TOUR Championship, allowing the players to see the course on television.

Canales said she watched the TOUR Championship this summer to prepare for her own play at the East Lake Golf Club.

“I (also) asked my coach and my swing coach, my own personal coach, a couple questions about the course just to practice the right things this week,” Canales said. “It is demanding off the tee but not to the extent that there is a lot of trouble off the tee like we saw at our last tournament at Blessings. I think ball-striking and really placing our approach shots in the right spot will be necessary, especially under match play.”

UCLA will tee off Monday to begin individual stroke play and determine match play seeding. Forsyth said she hopes the team will be the No. 1 seed.

“We have to play good the first day of stroke play,” Forsyth said. “It’s really important for us to just shoot a good number and post a good number in the first round of stroke play.”