The Bruins lost the biggest on the shortest holes last weekend.
UCLA men’s golf shot 27-over on par-3s at the Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate Invitational in Alpharetta, Georgia, from Friday through Sunday. The Bruins were top-five finishers on both par-4s and par-5s in those same three rounds, but were tied in last place for par-3s.
“That’s probably one of the key points,” said coach Derek Freeman. “It’s the type of golf course where the par-3s are challenging and difficult, but you have to do a good job of managing that, and we did not.”
UCLA finished the first day of the tournament tied for fourth place with a 3-under 285 and moved into third place the next day despite shooting 4-over. The Bruins and the rest of the field struggled with weather conditions in the second round.
UCLA finished in fifth place with a 4-over 292 on Sunday. However, junior Eddy Lai finished tied for first place, earning the first victory of his collegiate career.
“We were in a really nice position to play well and have a good tournament and have a chance to win,” Freeman said. “Our guys did not perform well outside of (Lai on Sunday).”
Lai was on the leaderboard for par-3, par-4 and par-5 scoring. He finished the weekend tied for 14th in par-3s and par-5s, shooting 2-over and 4-under, respectively. Lai’s 5-under score across par-4s was the best of any player at the tournament.
The Bruins’ next best scorer, sophomore Bryan Wiyang Teoh, finished tied for 19th but shot 7-over on par-3s. Sophomore Sean Maruyama was the worst scorer for UCLA, tying for 71st, and was 8-over on par-3s.
Both Teoh and Maruyama were in the bottom-five par-3 scorers over the weekend.
“We also had two big numbers – both (Teoh) and (Maruyama) had big numbers on par-3s, and you just can’t have that,” Freeman said.
The Bruins will have a week off before having two more chances to improve their par-3 scoring this fall.
“We only have two tournaments left, and I feel pretty good,” Lai said. “This is by far my best finish, so I feel like if I can play well here then I can play well against anybody, anywhere.”
