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WAIKOLOA, Hawai'i - The UCLA men's golf team, ranked 29th in the nation, begins its spring season this week at the Amer Ari Invitational, which runs from Thursday through Saturday at the Waikoloa Kings' Course.
Co-hosted by Hawai'i and Hawai'i-Hilo, the field features 19 schools, including #1 Auburn, #5 Stanford, #9 USC, #12 Oklahoma State, #15 Arizona State, #26 Georgia Tech, #32 Oregon, #33 Texas Tech, #57 TCU, #68 Colorado, #70 Oregon State, #98 UC Davis, Cal State Monterey Bay, Pacific, San Jose State and Japan's Osaka Gakuin University.
The three-day, 54-hole tournament will be played on a par-72 course with a 7,074-yard layout. Play will begin each day at 7:30 a.m. HT/9:30 a.m. PT with a shotgun start. Live scoring will be available here.
The Bruin fivesome will consist of seniors Lorens Chan and Jonathan Garrick, sophomore Corey Shaun and freshmen Phil Delisi and Cole Madey. Freshman Patrick Murphy will play as an individual.
UCLA played four times during the fall season, posting a pair of third-place finishes at the Northern Intercollegiate (Sept. 12-13) and the Erin Hills Intercollegiate (Oct. 4-6), as well as a fourth-place showing at the Gifford Collegiate (Nov. 2-4). The Erin Hills tournament saw the Bruins post their best score of the season, a 7-under 857.
That tournament was won by Garrick, who posted a 10-under score (206). Garrick has been the top UCLA scorer in all four tournaments, finishing fourth at the Gifford (-3) and tied for sixth at the Northern Intercollegiate (+2). Garrick is 9-under in 12 rounds this season for a scoring average of 71.0. He is ranked 27th in the Golfweek/amateurgolf.com player rankings and is 16th in the Golfweek individual ratings.
Chan returns to action after missing the fall season with a wrist injury. The Second Team All-Pac-12 honoree last season had a 72.5 scoring average in 40 rounds, posting four Top 10 finishes, 17 rounds under par and eight rounds under 70. Shaun played twice during the fall, finishing T-45 at the Northern and T-51 at the Gifford (+27 combined score, average 76.0).
Madey, who played in all four fall tournaments, is coming off his best collegiate finish at the Gifford. He led after the first round following a 4-under 67 and finished the tournament in a tie for 12th. Delisi's best finish in the fall was at Erin Hills when he tied for 24th (+4), which featured his lone under-par round of the season. Murphy posted T-9 and T-19 placings in his first two collegiate tournaments and has a scoring average of 74.3 through four outings.
The Bruins, who won this tournament in 2013, tied for 10th last season. Garrick was T-23 (-7, 209) a year ago, while Chan was T-29 (-4, 212). Chan added a T-9 finish in 2014 (-10, 206).