UCLA men’s golf will travel to Pebble Beach, California, to compete in the Cypress Point Classic this week.
UCLA last competed in the Cypress Point Classic in 2016 as the No. 7 seed. The Bruins defeated Wake Forest in best ball and tied USC in foursomes, but USC advanced to the final by way of a tiebreaker. UCLA defeated host Stanford in singles match play to finish the event in third place.
Senior Hidetoshi Yoshihara is the only Bruin with experience in the Cypress Point Classic. As a freshman, Yoshihara lost in his singles match against Stanford’s Jeff Swegle.
Junior Eddy Lai is coming off of his first collegiate victory at the Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate Invitational on Oct. 20. The Bruins have finished third and fifth in their first two fall tournaments.
Sophomore Bryan Wiyang Teoh has earned two top-20 finishes this fall, and junior Devon Bling finished tied for 19th and tied for 35th in his first two tournaments, respectively.
In the past two team tournaments, the Bruins played a standard five-man lineup for 54 holes of stroke play, meaning the score for a round was the number of strokes needed to complete the course.
By contrast, the Cypress Point Classic format will be team match play, in which the score is determined by the number of holes a team wins. The format is akin to the biennial Ryder’s Cup competition between the United States and Europe.
On Monday, eight teams will play two rounds. Round one will be a four-ball, best ball match, and round two will feature foursomes match play. In best ball, two players on each team play as normal, so four balls are in play at each hole, but each team counts the lower of the two scores. By contrast, foursomes is a competition in which each member of a two-person team alternates hitting the team’s ball.
Tuesday will feature singles match play, which is a one-on-one event. For all three competitions, the team with the lowest score wins the hole.
UCLA tees off Monday at Cypress Point Club.
