Lilia Vu claimed her fourth victory in as many starts and broke the UCLA record for career victories with eight while leading the Bruins to victory in the Arizona Wildcat Invitational Collegiate Tournament at Sewailo Golf Club in Tucson, Ariz.
Vu, a junior from Fountain Valley, broke a tie with Bronte Law, who had seven wins for UCLA, and posted a score of 64-64-69—202, 14-under-par, to break by one stroke the school record of 201 for 54 holes set by Sydnee Michaels in the 2008 NCAA Regional.
“I’m pretty proud,” said Vu, who holed out for an eagle on the 12th hole and added four birdies in the final round. “I didn’t expect to break the other record for lowest tournament total, so it’s pretty cool.
“I think it’s just a lot of hard work and being able to be open to new things and always learning new things. It’s being open-minded and taking what you can get.”
Bruin Coach Carrie Forsyth said of Vu: “I think she’s really got a really good understanding of course management as it relates to her game and her strengths and weaknesses.
“She is not at all afraid of not hitting a driver off the tee, and just hits the right club for her to put herself in the right position with the club that she likes.”
Vu’s UCLA teammate Mariel Galdiano was second at 69-69-67—205, followed by Gigi Stoll of Arizona at 74-66-69—209, Kaitlyn Papp of Texas at 69-72-69—210 and YuSang Hou of Arizona at 68-75-68—211.
Connie Jaffrey of Kansas State was sixth at 70-71-72—213, Linda Lundqvist of Augusta at 73-69-72—214 and Holland Shourds of Long Beach State at 68-72-75—215, while Deanna Salvatori of Grand Canyon shot 73-76-67— 216, Greta Volker of Texas at 72-71-73—216, and Agathe Laisne of Texas at 72-72-72—216.
Rounding out the scoring for the Bruins were Erin Choi in a tie for 20th at 74-71-74—219, Bethany Wu in a tie for 25th at 71-75-76—222, Clare Legaspi in a tie for 80th at 80-81-75—236 and Vera Markevich in a tie for 85th at 84-75-80—239.
Top-ranked UCLA claimed its fifth victory of the season with a score of
278-284-285—847, 17-under, followed by host Arizona at 284-288-284— 856, Texas at 282-292-286—860 and Long Beach State at 282-297-302— 881, while Purdue totaled 294-294-298—886 to tie for fifth with UNLV, which came in at 287-295-304—886.
“The course seemed really scoreable and not that difficult,” Forsyth said. “Just a lot of good golf, and when you have that feeling as a player that feels like they can score out here then good things can really happen.”
Denver totaled 294-295-303—892 to tie for seventh with Augusta, which finished at 285-300-307—892, while North Carolina State wound up at 298-298-299—895 to tie for ninth with New Mexico, who totaled 298-300- 297—895.
For complete results, visit http://results.golfstat.com//public/leaderboards/gsnav.cfm?pg=participants&tid=15295.
