If last weekend’s ASU Thunderbird Invitational was a preview of the Pac-10 championships to take place later this month, the UCLA men’s golf team should be looking forward to it.
With all of the Pac-10 teams competing on ASU’s Karsten Golf Course, the same course that will host the championships, the Bruins were able to come away with a second place finish at 281 (-11). Washington, who took home the trophy, blazed seven spots up the leader board in Saturday’s final round with a 268 (-16). USC took third, finishing one stroke behind the Bruins. San Diego State’s J.J. Spaun took home the individual medalist honors by outlasting Washington freshman Chris Williams in a playoff.
“(Washington) just put together an impressive performance on the back nine,” UCLA freshman Pontus Widegren said. “We thought it was going to be between us and USC and then all of a sudden, Washington was up there as well. It’s always nice to beat USC but unfortunately, we couldn’t catch Washington. They were a little too good today.”
A pleasant surprise for the Bruins came in the form of freshman Mario Clemens. Clemens earned the fifth spot in the lineup by going 3-1-0 in last week’s Collegiate Match Play Championship and his consistent play carried over to the Thunderbird Invitational, finishing in a log jam of players tied for 11th place at 210 (-3) along with fellow freshman Pedro Figueiredo.
“I hit the ball pretty well and didn’t make any huge mistakes. Coach Freeman was by my side the whole time and he really helped me out. I just had a good vibe going into this tournament after playing well at the match play,” Clemens said of his performance.
Widegren finished in a tie for 16th, one shot behind Clemens and Figueriedo; Gregor Main finished tied for 24th at even par for the tournament. Alex Shi Yup Kim’s score was not attributed to the team total because of the five-count-four format, however, he finished the tournament at one over par in 30th place, not far behind the rest of the pack.
Widegren said that he was pleased with the team’s performance but he feels that they did not reach their potential.
“We all played decent. It was nice to be in contention but we didn’t feel that we did our absolute best. We were consistent, but we didn’t make the amount of birdies that we expected to,” Widegren said.
Clemens also felt that the Bruins missed some opportunities but remained positive about their performance overall.
“I know, in my round, that I could have shaved four shots in today’s round alone. There were just a couple mistakes made here and there and I think the rest of the guys would say the same thing,” Clemens said.
Widegren feels that the old golfing adage of “drive for show, putt for dough” will hold true when the Bruins come back to Arizona for the Pac-10 Championships in three weeks.
“Washington is a team that has a great short game and they came out on top this week. It shows the importance of a good short game on a course like this,” Widegren said. “Being on top of your short game is going to be key to win the Pac-10 tournament.”