UCLA
The Tindall
Men's Golf to Open 2024-25 Season at The Tindall
September 20, 2024 | Men's Golf
LOS ANGELES – The UCLA men's golf team will open the 2024-25 season at The Tindall on Monday, Sept. 23, at Aldarra Golf Club in Sammamish, Wash.
Next week's season-opening tournament will begin the third season with head coach Armen Kirakossian leading the UCLA men's golf program. The two-day, 54-hole stroke play tournament will feature 14 teams. The Bruins will play 36 continuous holes on Monday, followed by 18 holes on Tuesday. Monday's shotgun start is scheduled for 8 a.m. (PT), with live scoring available online at GolfStat.
UCLA's first starting lineup of the 2024-25 season will feature two seniors, one junior, and two sophomores. Bruins' freshman Baylor Larrabee will participate as an individual competitor.
"What I'm most excited about with this tournament, going into my third year at UCLA, is that I feel like we've got a group of 10 guys who are all pushing in the same direction," Kirakossian said. "They all want the same things, and what's really exciting is they're all doing it together. They are really coming together as a team, pushing each other and helping each other. Practice has been very competitive at our home qualifiers, and that is what you want as a coach. That allows us to be in a state of mind, with practice, that prepares us for tournament golf. So I'm really excited to see how that translates. I love going up to the Northwest, where I grew up just south of there in Oregon, so it's a bit of a home feel for me. A few of these guys, Pablo and Omar, have played the golf course in the Pac-12 Championship a few years back. They have a little bit of the course knowledge. We are really looking forward to seeing the guys compete out there, and we'll see how this propels us for the rest of the year."
UCLA's Lineup: Omar Morales, Kyle An, Pablo Ereño, Alex Papayoanou and Luke Powell
UCLA's Individual Competitor: Baylor Larrabee
The Field: Arizona, California, Nevada, Ohio State, Oregon, Oregon State, Pepperdine, Saint Mary's, San Diego State, Seattle, South Carolina, UCLA, Utah, Washington (host).
Weather Report: Partly cloudy on Monday, mostly sunny on Tuesday, temperatures in the low 70s.
Par and Yardage: Par 71, 6,926 yards
Aldarra Golf Club, in 2022
Competing for UCLA as freshmen in 2021-22, Pablo Ereño and Omar Morales played at Aldarra Golf Club at the season-culminating Pac-12 Championships. Ereño notched a pair of sub-70 scores in rounds one (-3, 68) and two (-2, 69) on day one of the Pac-12 Championships. He finished the three-day tournament T-18 (+3, 287). Morales tied for 24th at the Pac-12 Championships that season (+6, 290).
Last Season's Tournament
UCLA tied for sixth in a 14-team field last season at the season-opening Husky Invitational (now The Tindall). As a freshman, Luke Powell finished in third place at 10-under in his collegiate debut, leading UCLA at the Husky Invitational at Gold Mountain Club. As a team, the Bruins finished at 3-under, 861. That marked UCLA's best performance to start a season in four years, when the Bruins had played third at 5-under at the 2019 Marquette Intercollegiate (Erin Hills Golf Course).
Course host Washington won last season's Husky Invitational by 26 strokes at 40-under, 824. Powell posted the best finish by a non-Husky at the tournament. Washington's Taehoon Song and Petr Hruby placed first and second at 15-under and 12-under, respectively.
2023-24 in Review
The Bruins concluded a successful 2023-24 campaign with an NCAA Regional berth, accruing numerous individual honors and establishing several single-season records. UCLA placed third or better in four tournaments and finished as the runner-up at the Thunderbird Collegiate in the team's final regular-season event. In addition, the Bruins concluded the season under par as a team (-38), across 12 stroke play tournaments. That marked the first time in which UCLA had achieved that feat since 2018-19.
Top team finishes occurred at the Southwestern Invitational (t-3rd) to being the spring, and the Hamptons Intercollegiate (3rd) and The Cal Poly Invitational (2nd) in the fall. At the Southwestern Invitational, two Bruins placed in the top 10 to help UCLA momentarily grab hold of the lead in the final round (eventually placing above four top-25 programs). UCLA had a strong outing at Maidstone Golf Club at the Hamptons Intercollegiate, shooting -20 over 54 holes and finishing four strokes behind the tournament champion. UCLA's season ended at the Stanford Regional, where the Bruins finished five strokes shy of the cut line to advance to the NCAA Championships.
Now a senior, Omar Morales secured third-team GCAA All-America honors during his junior season. He became the first UCLA All-America selection under head coach Armen Kirakossian. In the Pac-12 awards circuit, Morales earned first-team honors and junior Pablo Ereño and freshman Luke Powell both secured second-team acclaim. That marked the first time in their careers that they had received all-conference recognition. In addition, those three All-Pac-12 Team nods were UCLA's most since 2012-13.
Haskins Award, Fall Watch List
Senior Omar Morales has been named to the Haskins Award 2024-25 Fall Watch List, as announced earlier this month. This award is annually presented to the top male U.S. collegiate golfer, as voted on by college golfers, coaches and members of the golf media. Morales has joined a list of 25 top collegiate golfers on the award's fall watch list.
The UCLA men's golf program has produced two previous Haskins Award winners, since the award's inception in 1971. Kevin Chappell won the Haskins Award in 2008, while Patrick Cantlay earned the prestigious honor in 2011.
Morales was a third-team GCAA All-America selection as a junior in 2023-24, having been selected a first-team All-Pac-12 selection. In addition, he earned Golfweek Honorable Mention All-America honors. He concluded the season as the 27th-ranked golfer and second Latin American and Mexican in the World Amateur Golf Rankings.
Earlier this summer, Morales competed in this second consecutive U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2 (Pinehurst Village, N.C.). He missed the cut at +7 (73-74) and finished seventh among 16 amateurs in the field. Morales had won his U.S. Open Qualifying Round at Lake Merced Golf Club in Daly City, going birdie-birdie on his final two holes to secure the spot in the U.S. Open's field of 156.
UCLA's Freshmen
The Bruins' program has added two talented freshmen, with Trevor Garus (Boise, Idaho) and Baylor Larrabee (Ferndale, Wash.). Both freshmen had strong prep careers before arriving in Westwood this fall.
Larrabee, who will be competing as an individual at Aldarra Golf Club, won the 2024 Junior Boys PGA Championship in August at Congressional Country Club (Bethesda, Md.). Competing at the 48th Junior PGA Championship, Larrabee entered the final round tied for fifth after 12 spots up the leaderboard with a round of 5-under 67. His momentum carried into the last round, matching his third-round score to finish at 10-under 277.
On Larrabee's final day at Congressional Country Club, he birdied the par-3, 169-yard 7th and eagled the par-4, 296-yard 8th before adding birdies on the 9th and 10th holes to secure a three-stroke lead. He had been named Washington Junior Golf Association (WJGA) Player of the Year and Boys Player of the Year in 2023 after winning three titles at the Hogan Cup, Western Open and Player's Open.
Garus qualified for the 2024 U.S. Amateur Championship, played at Hazeltine National Golf Club (Chaska, Minn.). In addition, he played in the 2024 Junior Boys PGA Championship at Congressional Country Club (Bethesda, Md.), the North & South Amateur Championship at Pinehurst (Pinehurst, N.C.) and the Pacific Coast Amateur Championship, hosted at Chambers Bay, Wash.
Hailing from Boise, Idaho, Garus was named the 2023 Idaho Player of the Year after winning the Idaho Golf Association (IGA) Men's State Amateur Championship in July of 2023 by one stroke at 4-under (round scores of 73-70-69). His victory at the IGA Men's State Amateur Championship came in clutch fashion, as he won on his final hole after teeing off the 18th, one shot back of the lead. Three weeks prior, Garus won three of his four matches in the 2023 IGA Match Play Championship with margins of 5&4 and 8&7 in his first two matches, before falling in the championship round.
UCLA's 2024-25 Roster
| Name | Year | Height | Hometown |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kyle An | Jr. | 5-9 | Aliso Viejo, Calif. |
| Luciano Conlan | So. | 6-0 | Kaneohe, Hawai'i |
| Pablo Ereño | Sr. | 5-10 | Madrid, Spain |
| Trevor Garus | Fr. | 6-0 | Boise, Idaho |
| Baylor Larrabee | Fr. | 6-5 | Ferndale, Wash. |
| Omar Morales | Sr. | 6-2 | Puebla, Mexico |
| Alex Papayoanou | So. | 5-10 | The Woodlands, Texas |
| Luke Powell | So. | 5-11 | Laguna Niguel, Calif. |
| Matthew Yamin | R-So. | 5-11 | New York, N.Y. |
| Andy Yoon | Sr. | 5-11 | Cypress, Calif. |
Players Mentioned
