After a disappointing 13th place finish in the John Burns Intercollegiate in Hawaii last week, Gaucho golf was looking to do some damage to a slew of west coast foes, but it was not to be. UCSB took ninth place out of the 18 teams in the field, a finish of which Head Coach Steve Lass was not proud.

“We pretty much played mediocre,” Lass said. “It was a decent field of teams and we just didn’t play well enough.”

Included in the field were four Big West opponents: Cal Poly, Long Beach State, Cal State Northridge, and UC Riverside. Although they kept up with some of the best teams in the nation through three rounds, things finally fell apart on Tuesday.

“We were playing with those teams all three rounds, but we just didn’t play well enough today,” Lass said.

One bright spot for the Gauchos was the performance of sophomore Tyler Weir. He shot a two-over-par 218 to finish in seventh place, just three strokes back of the leader. Though his putting gave him some trouble, Weir was satisfied with how he played.

“My weakness this tournament was putting,” Weir said. “But my ball striking was one of the best of the year, I just missed a few short putts here and there.”

Junior captain Brian Hollenbeck, who leads the Gauchos with a 72.17 scoring average on the season, was less satisfied.

“My long game has been a little inconsistent lately, so that’s something that I need to work on and hopefully improve,” Hollenbeck said.

Hollenbeck and the rest of the Gauchos will try to work on their game this week before they head to Fresno to play in the Fresno State Lexus Classic this Monday. Coach Lass is looking for improvement, and will not hesitate to make some lineup changes.

We’ll probably have some of the same guys from this tournament but not all of them, so we’ll try to get somebody in there who is going to play well.”

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