W. golf: Champs hope to overcome fatigue
For a team whose season doesn’t start for another five months, the defending champion UCLA women’s golf team is already a bit tired.
That’s because women’s golf coach Carrie Forsyth is keeping her team pretty busy, having scheduled three exhibition tournaments in a span of less than two weeks.
Though it would appear Forsyth is trying to keep her team on top of its game, the fact is she’s just trying to make the squad stronger for its marathon finish this spring, even if that decision means challenging them now.
Fresh off its seventh-place finish at the Fall Preview in Bend, Ore., the Bruins will travel across the country to Nashville, Tenn. to compete in the Mason Rudolph Championship, hosted by Vanderbilt University at The Legends Club.
The tournament, which spans from Friday to Sunday, will be played at The Ironhorse Course at The Legends Club, which plays to a par of 72 over 6,069 yards.
Traveling to Tennessee will be the regular starting lineup of senior Charlotte Mayorkas, junior Susie Mathews, sophomore Hannah Jun, and freshmen Amie Cochran and Vanessa Brockett.
For one thing, the golfers are hoping their legs catch up to them.
“I think we’re a little fatigued,” Jun said.
Some of the fatigue can be attributed to the tournament held two weeks ago in Riverside, where the women took on a field of 29 all- male teams.
Finishing in 23rd place, the women came away from the tournament with more confidence, but at the expense of mental energy.
“It was a grueling type of tournament,” Forsyth said. “We came away from it really mentally fatigued.”
So the team will tee off today, a bit weary, still searching for its first tournament victory of the season.
“We almost won this tournament last year,” Forsyth said. “So we have a little bone to pick with this course.”


