The Bruins are traveling back to where they began the season with the chance to improve upon their first two results.
UCLA women’s golf will play at the Sun Devil Winter Classic in Scottsdale, Arizona. Three rounds of 18 holes will be played in a three-day stretch from Monday to Wednesday.
In the inaugural edition of the tournament, 10 teams will be in the field, all of which hail from the Pac-12 – Arizona State, Washington, Oregon, Arizona, Oregon State, Colorado, Washington State, in-state rival California and crosstown rival USC.
Junior Simar Singh, who will be in the starting lineup for the third consecutive tournament to open the season, said she is looking forward to the challenges of playing a course that differs from last week’s tournament at The Farms Golf Club.
“I’m excited – it’s a much different golf course than the one we played last week in San Diego … we’re just going to try to focus on staying disciplined and what we’re working on,” Singh said.
With Pac-12 teams on the field, coach Carrie Forsyth said she has been urging the team to treat this as just another tournament. Forsyth emphasized that the Bruins must play the best they can but also said her players can only control how they play and not their opponents.
UCLA had a chance at a come-from-behind victory in the final round of the Lamkin Invitational last week but was unable to secure a win. However, sophomore Annabel Wilson said the Bruins remain in good spirits.
“Hopes are still up after Tuesday,” Wilson said. “Can definitely take a lot of positives this week … we just discussed how we are going to move forward from this.”
This is Wilson’s first go at the spring season. In her freshman year, she only made seven starts before all sports were shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s unfortunate last year that I never got to see how the spring season unfolded,” Wilson said. “(I’m) super excited. … Even with everything going on, I am excited to see what the buzz is about. We’re building our games up so we can peak when it matters.”
According to Singh, some of the positives for the team were the putting and par 5 play. She emphasized these are important things to build off of going into the week.
However, she said while the team is good at scoring the birdies, they need to clean up the unforced errors throughout the round.
“Last week, our putting was definitely better than our first tournament,” Singh said. “I also think our par 5’s were much better at this last tournament – that’s another really important thing to build off of. As a team, we can make a lot of birdies … it’s just about minimizing the mistakes.”
The Bruins will ride the same starting lineup for the third consecutive week as sophomore Emma Spitz will once again headline the lineup with the chance to secure her third consecutive top-3 finish. Wilson and sophomore Emilie Paltrinieri will follow Spitz, and then Singh and junior Phoebe Yue will round out the lineup.
Forsyth said even though the team has not seen the course before, she anticipated that as a desert course, it will bring unique challenges to the field. She said each desert course is set up differently, so the team needs to see the course and prepare accordingly in the practice round.
The tournament tees off Monday at Talking Stick Golf Club.
