By Sean Green
Daily Bruin Contributor
After sneaking into the top three at the Pac-10 Championships,
the No. 16 UCLA women’s golf team begins play today at the
NCAA West Regionals.
The Karsten Golf Course in Tempe, Ariz. plays host to this
event, which serves as a qualifier for the NCAA Championships two
weeks from now.
For the Bruins to earn a berth in those championships and
continue their season, they must finish in the top 11 out of 24
teams competing this weekend.
“We’re as ready we’re going to be,”
Bruin head coach Carrie Leary said Wednesday after her team shot a
practice round. “The biggest thing is the confidence you have
going into a tournament.”
The team’s only senior, Amanda Moltke-Leth, is also
confident.
“We’re ready to fight,” she said.
The tournament favorite is host Arizona State, whose home course
is Karsten.
In UCLA’s last event, poor weather played a major factor
in contributing to the high scores which disguised the team’s
strong play.
This week will be the complete opposite end of the spectrum as
forecasts are for clear skies and highs should reach 99 degrees by
Saturday.
So now the team just has to contend with the heat.
“It was really hot out there today,” Moltke-Leth
said. “But it’s something we can easily adjust
to.”
UCLA will send the same five to this tournament that played in
its lone victory of the season.
Led by Moltke-Leth, the team has finished in the top 10 in seven
consecutive events.
Moltke-Leth is ranked seventh nationally. She recently received
First Team All-Pac-10 honors.
Should UCLA not move past this tournament, Moltke-Leth can earn
one of the two individual NCAA championship spots with good
play.
“Amanda looks good,” Leary said. “She gets a
look about her sometimes that you know she wants to contend for a
win and not just shoot good numbers.”
Junior Laura Moffat is second on the team in scoring average and
she played well at Karsten in her last trip there. Moffat’s
best tournament of the year was a playoff victory at the Rainbow
Wahine Classic back in November.
“We’ve played on this course a lot of times before.
We’re confident about it,” Moffat said. “I think
we’re going to do really well.”
Junior Leilani Bagby has also stepped up her game of late,
beginning with a second-place tie at the Bruin Pioneer Classic. At
the Pac-10 Championships, Bagby fired a final round 73 to tie for
11th.
Sophomore Alicia Um and freshman Vivan Phosomran may be the keys
to the Bruins’ success. The team has been hurt almost every
tournament when it has been forced to count scores in the 80s.
If Um and Phosomran can card scores in the mid-70s, the Bruins
can turn their 300s into competitive 290s.
UCLA opened the season in the top-25 and has slowly climbed to
its current spot at 16.
Throughout the year, Leary has continually preached confidence
as an important key to fulfilling the Bruins’ goals, one of
which is reaching NCAA Championships.
“The team is looking really good. Everybody is hitting
well, everybody’s ready to go. We feel prepared,” Leary
said.
Ending the season this week is a strong possibility, but nobody
is counting the Bruins out yet.
With contributions from Pauline Vu, Daily Bruin Senior
Staff.