LA JOLLA, Calif. - The UC San Diego men's golf team returns to competition Monday, marking the Tritons' first tournament play since March of 2020. It will also be the first time the team hits the links as an NCAA Division I squad.
The Tritons will tee it up Monday and Tuesday at the Orange County Collegiate Classic, co-hosted by UC Irvine and Cal State Fullerton on
Coto de Caza's South Course.
"We are very excited to be competing as it has been almost a year," said third-year UC San Diego head coach
Fred Hanover. "We have many new players who will be competing in college for the first time and I am looking forward to seeing them develop into champions."
In the starting five for UC San Diego will be four freshmen including
Davis Lee (1),
Jerry Wu (2),
Alex Hanz (3), and
Akira Isayama (5). Rounding out the lineup is junior
Jared Gross in the fourth position. Senior
Ryan Vaughan will compete as an individual and will not figure in the team scoring.
"We had extremely competitive qualifying for this event," said Hanover. "It went six rounds and came down to the very end to see who would be playing. The top five survived and the sixth-place finisher will compete as an individual."
Also competing in the tournament will be Cal Poly, Cal State Fullerton, California Baptist, Grand Canyon, UC Irvine, and the University of San Francisco.
"Our keys to success are what they always are in golf - be aggressive when the situation dictates and trust yourself," said Hanover. "We have four freshmen playing in this event so I am hoping they begin to understand just how good they are. If they trust their preparation, they will succeed."
The par-72 South Course will be playing at 6,950 yards.
In 2020, UC San Diego's final season in Division II, the Tritons
tied for 10th of 17 teams at the Orange County Collegiate Classic, finishing 54-over at Coto de Caza. Fifteen of the schools competing were from Division I. Cal State Fullerton and the University of San Francisco tied for the team title at 12-over par, while CSUF's Derek Castillo was the individual medal winner at 8-under.
Monday's action, which will feature 36 holes, begins at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday's third and final round tees off at 8:45 a.m. Play can be followed online with
live scoring.
Also in February, UC San Diego will take part in The Joust, hosted by California Baptist at Goose Creek in Riverside. That tournament will take place Feb. 22-23.
More events will be added to the Tritons' 2021 schedule as details are finalized in today's ever-changing landscape.
UC San Diego last competed on March 3, 2020, at the
Las Vegas Desert Classic. The NCAA then canceled all of its remaining championships due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Tritons had to forgo the remaining four tournaments of their regular season, including their own SoCal Intercollegiate and the California Collegiate Athletic Association Championships.
About UC San Diego Athletics
After two decades as one of the most successful programs in NCAA Division II, the UC San Diego intercollegiate athletics program began a new era in 2020 as a member of the Big West Conference in NCAA Division I. The 23-sport Tritons earned 30 team and nearly 150 individual national championships during its time in Divisions III and II and helped guide 1,400 scholar-athletes to All-America honors. A total of 83 Tritons have earned Academic All-America honors, while 37 have earned prestigious NCAA Post Graduate Scholarships. UC San Diego scholar-athletes exemplify the academic ideals of one of the world's preeminent institutions, graduating at an average rate of 91 percent, one of the highest rates among institutions at all divisions.
