The UCLA men’s golf team is set to compete in the Southern Highlands Collegiate tournament in Las Vegas, beginning Sunday, March 1. The event will be held at the Southern Highlands Golf Club and will run through Tuesday, March 3.
This tournament features a strong field of 15 teams, all ranked within the top 50 by Scoreboard Powered by Clippd. Among these are nine teams ranked in the top 25 and five in the top 10. Teams participating alongside No. 31-ranked UCLA include No. 1 Virginia, No. 2 Auburn, No. 3 Florida, No. 4 Texas, and others such as Pepperdine, Illinois, Oklahoma, New Mexico, San Diego State, Texas A&M, UNLV (host), Georgia, Washington, and South Carolina.
UCLA head coach Armen Kirakossian commented on the upcoming event: “We are really excited to have the team back at the Southern Highlands Collegiate,” Kirakossian said. “This is a long-standing event, in something like its 25th year, and it’s always a great field. This is as place that you’d like to be in college golf, competing in Vegas in the Southern Highlands Collegiate. This event has all of the best teams in the country. We’re looking forward to the opportunity to compete. This golf course, historically, has been very challenging. It’s a championship-style field, so we are excited to get our team out there and compete against some of the best teams in the country on one of the best venues in the country.”
The Bruins’ lineup for this tournament includes Baylor Larrabee, Kyle An, Josh Kim, Logan Kim, and Tyler Loree.
So far this spring season, UCLA has participated in three tournaments including this upcoming event. Most recently they finished 14th out of 20 programs at the Amer Ari Intercollegiate held at Mauna Lani Resort Golf Club in Hawaii. Earlier results include a second-place finish out of four teams at January’s Copper Cup match-play format event in Orange County—where they defeated USC before losing to Arizona—and an eighth-place tie among thirteen programs at the Southwestern Invitational.
Looking back at their fall season under Coach Kirakossian’s leadership—now his fourth year with UCLA—the Bruins achieved two top-three finishes including winning the team championship at Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish Classic where sophomore Baylor Larrabee placed fourth individually with a score of four-under-par over three rounds.
The win at Notre Dame was one of four championships for UCLA within a year; previous victories included The Preserve Golf Club Collegiate (Carmel), The Goodwin (Stanford), and last spring’s Big Ten Championships (Baltimore). Other notable fall performances included third place at Sahalee Players Championship (Washington) where Kyle An was UCLA’s highest finisher.
The Southern Highlands Golf Club course for this tournament is par-72 with a total yardage of 7,510 yards. Play begins each day at 9 a.m., with practice rounds scheduled for Saturday afternoon.
Fans can follow live scoring throughout the tournament via Scoreboard from Sunday through Tuesday.
