The UCLA men’s golf team is set to start the spring segment of its 2025-26 season at The Copper Cup, held at El Niguel Country Club in Laguna Beach, California, on January 19 and 20. The tournament features a hybrid format with both alternate shot and singles matches.
The field for The Copper Cup includes four teams: No. 7 Arizona State, No. 21 UCLA, No. 24 USC, and No. 30 Arizona. On the first day, UCLA will compete against USC, while Arizona faces Arizona State. Depending on the outcomes, teams will advance to either the winners’ or losers’ match on the second day.
“We are really excited about the Copper Cup, which is a very unique event,” said UCLA head coach Armen Kirakossian. “You don’t often get to play head-to-head matches in college golf, other than something like this or the national championship when you advance to match play. But not only that, but having the chance to play eight players at a time is really cool. This is a unique format with alternate shot, followed by singles matches. This is one of our guys’ favorite events. They are so fired up for this.
“We will only play in this once every other year, so they have been talking about this for a while. We’re looking forward to the opportunity. It’s a fun way for us to kick off our spring, too. Most of the guys will all see some action. They’ll get competitive. To have this set up in a rivalry format with us taking on USC on the first day and Arizona and Arizona State playing each other, and then the winners will play each other after that. So in all, it makes for a fun and cool format. We’re really excited to get things going.”
El Niguel Country Club’s course plays as a par 72 with distances of 7,017 yards on Monday and 6,913 yards on Tuesday.
UCLA’s traveling roster consists of nine golfers: Kyle An, Luciano Conlan, Trevor Garus, Josh Kim, Logan Kim, Baylor Larrabee, Tyler Loree, Alex Papayoanou and Matthew Yamin.
Weather forecasts predict sunny conditions with temperatures in the low-to-mid 70s during the event.
The competition schedule starts each day at 8:00 a.m., featuring four alternate shot matches followed by eight singles matches beginning at 12:30 p.m., except if USC competes in Tuesday’s losers’ match when there will be seven singles matches.
Reviewing their fall performance in 2025 under head coach Armen Kirakossian’s fourth season leadership, UCLA achieved two top-three finishes including victory at the Fighting Irish Classic hosted by Notre Dame University—where sophomore Baylor Larrabee placed fourth individually after shooting four-under-par over three rounds.
This win was UCLA’s fourth championship within one year; previous victories included The Preserve Golf Club Collegiate (Carmel), The Goodwin (Stanford), and Big Ten Championships (Baltimore). Additionally, UCLA secured third place among twelve teams at Sahalee Players Championship in Washington state where Kyle An was their top performer.
Over fall 2025 season competitions included events in Washington (Sahalee Players Championship), Utah (The Wohali), Indiana (Fighting Irish Classic), and Georgia (Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate Invitational).
