MEN’S GOLF ‘mdash; After a nearly three-month hiatus from competition, the UCSD men’s golf team finished fifth in the second annual San Diego Collegiate Classic on Jan. 26.
The Tritons posted a team total of 635, 30 strokes behind overall winner University of San Diego. Junior Raj Samra, senior Ryan Bailey and junior Austin Alfonso all fired 161 two-round totals to lead for UCSD.
While this was not the start they wanted, head coach Mike Wydra was happy his team gained the experience against Division-I schools.
‘That kind of competition will serve us well in our next tournament,’ he said.’
In a battle royale of sorts among the collegiate golf teams of San Diego, Samra said it was a great opportunity to feel out the local competition.
‘On a better day, we can compete with them,’ Samra said. ‘I’ve known SDSU and USD have good teams, and it was fun to see how we compared.’
Without the luxury of a practice round, the Tritons struggled on the greens in round one. Alfonso led the Tritons with a 6-over 78 while Samra fired an uncharacteristically high 87.
The practice round before competition would have allowed players to gauge the difficulty of the course ‘mdash; especially the greens ‘mdash; and allowed for the golfers to make necessary adjustments. Less-than-ideal weather conditions further complicated play.
‘It was really windy and really cold,’ Samra said. ‘It was tough conditions not only for us, but for the other teams too. The fast greens were giving everyone trouble in that first round.’
After becoming familiar with the course in the first round, Samra fired a 2-over par 74 in the second, the third lowest score in the competition.
Sophomore Keith Okasaki saw similar progress, improving nearly 10 strokes from his first round score by the end of the second’ round. ‘This was our first tournament since October,’ Samra said. ‘Personally, it is a little different getting back into the flow ‘hellip; We’re disappointed with how we played, but we just need to get going again.’
Finally warming up after the long break from competition, the team will now shift its focus onto the Cal State San Marcos Invitational in February, with hopes of improving on a middle-of-the-pack, 10th place finish at last year’s invitational.
‘We’re going to go out to the Buck [Invitational] and learn how its done ‘mdash; lick our wounds and learn from our mistakes,’ Wydra said. ‘ Readers can contact Matt Croskey at [email protected]