The Big West Men's and Women's Golf Championship is less than two weeks away and a near majority of schools are in preparations for that event, with the lone exception the UC Irvine men's team. The Anteaters head to Northern California on Saturday and Sunday for the U.S. Intercollegiate hosted by Stanford.
UC Irvine has had an impressive run the entire season, posting top five finishes in eight of the nine tournaments it has competed in. The Anteaters most recently finished third at the Ogio Pacific Coast Intercollegiate (Apr. 2-3). At least one Anteater golfer has posted an individual top 10 finish in the previous five spring tournaments.
The Anteaters are the highest ranked men's team in the latest Golfweek/Sagarin index (Apr. 9) at No. 43.
The Big West Golf Championships will be played on Apr. 23-24 at the Tijeras Creek Golf Club in Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif. The men's course is a par-72, 6,918 yard layout while the women's course measures 6,059 yards. This is the fourth consecutive year that the Big West Conference and Tijeras Creek have partnered to host the event.
Previous men's champions include Long Beach State (2004), UC Riverside (2005) and Cal Poly (2006). On the women's side, Cal State Northridge won in 2004, while UC Irvine claimed back-to-back titles in 2005 and 2006.
Admission to this event is free.
The competing men's teams include Cal Poly, Cal State Northridge, Long Beach State, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, UC Santa Barbara and Pacific. Participating women's teams include Cal Poly, Cal State Northridge, Long Beach State, UC Irvine and UC Riverside. The UC Davis women's team will also compete as a non-scoring participant. UC Davis joins the Big West as an official member in 2007-08 and the Aggies will be eligible for championships in all conference-sponsored sports.
Four members of the 2006 All-Big West Women's Golf First Team and three from the All-Big West Men's Golf First Team are back in action at the 2007 Championship. The field includes the last two Big West Women's Golfers of the Year - Long Beach State's Kay Hoey (2005) and UC Irvine’s Selanee' Henderson (2006). Defending men's champion Cal Poly lost three-time Big West Men's Golfer of the Year Travis Bertoni to graduation, but won the Ogio Pacific Coast Intercollegiate, a tournament that included all seven Big West men's teams in the field.