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 Fifteen women's collegiate golf teams were in town for the Northrop Grumman Regional Challenge, one of the marquee events on the NCAA slate considering the quality of the course and that six of the top eight squads in Golfweek's national rankings were in the field. Not surprisingly, No. 4 USC and its crosstown rival, No. 1 UCLA, were neck-and-neck when the final round began - the Trojans led at 18 over par, while the Bruins were 19 over. The stage seemed set for a pressure-filled clash between rivals. Whichever titan won this battle would get area bragging rights and the momentum from topping one the country's best. But this isn't football or basketball. There were no face-painted fans in the gallery, no bands playing fight songs after players hit good shots, and absolutely no polarization between the UCLA and USC players and coaches. There was actually some camaraderie. "The rivalry in our sport is not really there in that sense," said UCLA coach Carrie Forsyth. "It's not a rivalry as you would maybe find in some of the other sports that exist where there's true animosity between the programs. We don't have that at all." Forsyth's colleague - Trojans coach Andrea Gaston - seconds that belief. "We certainly want to beat UCLA, but at the same time, with the sport that we're in, a lot of these players had relationships with one another prior to even being at their respective universities," she said. "When you're out there for four-and-a-half hours, it's kind of hard to be stone faced for that amount of time. You've still got to talk to your playing partners. They seem to have a good enough relationship where they can do that." That day, Gaston's bunch couldn't maintain its lead and finished third, while the Bruins compiled a stellar 5-over-par team score to win by seven shots. No hard feelings, though. "We're both really competitive and we know when everyone's competing on the golf course we have to beat each other. But outside the golf course, we get along pretty well," said USC sophomore Belén Mozo. "We're really good friends with the USC team," said Bruins junior and San Diego native Tiffany Joh, who believes the squads were even tighter when USC alumna Irene Cho was in school. "Irene was like my big sister. It was almost like a couple times a week that we'd go down there [for dinner]," Joh said. Just as friends on each team graduate, recruits come in with renewed bonds. A pair of freshmen - USC's Lizette Salas and UCLA's Glory Yang - played junior golf in Southern California, while Maria Jose Uribe was especially happy to arrive in Westwood last fall since she would be closer to fellow Colombian and USC senior Paola Moreno. Amity aside, the fact that Uribe is on the Bruins instead of the Trojans reveals an arena where the rivalry is more significant than it is on the course: recruiting. "A lot of the time we are recruiting the same players because of the talent level and our rankings. It does mean a lot to recruit somebody, and know that the other school is recruiting them as well, and you end up getting them," Gaston said. "It's probably a little bit more of a rivalry in the recruiting arena than we would actually have once we get out on the golf course," said Forsyth, who recruited Salas and Joanne Lee, another Trojans freshman. "Every year, we kind of end up splitting down the middle." It's ironic that arguably the most prevalent feud in women's college golf involving USC and UCLA puts the rivals on the same side. That's because Duke has won the national title each of the past three years. The Los Angeles powers have made it interesting during that stretch: UCLA finished second in 2005 and USC was runner-up the next year, and the Bruins and Trojans finished third and fourth, respectively, in 2007. "Obviously we want to beat [Duke] but at the same time I really admire the depth of talent in the Pac-10, and more than anything I would rather see one of our Pac-10 schools win a national championship," Gaston said. It's not necessarily just the Blue Devils, either. "All of us on the West Coast really want to do well against the East Coast teams," Forsyth said. "There's probably a little bit more of a West-East rivalry than there is a USC-UCLA rivalry in our sport." The two programs figure to be on the front lines again when the postseason rolls around, especially considering Gaston and Forsyth know what it takes to coach an NCAA championship team - Duke's streak was preceded by a USC title in '03 and a UCLA championship the following season. Both rosters are loaded. USC senior Dewi-Claire Schreefel won the NCAA individual crown in 2006 and Moreno was the runner-up the following year. Uribe ('07 Women's Amateur) and Joh ('06 Public Links) are both USGA champions. Mozo won both the British Ladies Open and the British Girls Open crowns in 2006. This season, UCLA has four players inside Golfweek's top 18. USC has five inside the top 40, and that doesn't include sophomore transfer Stefanie Endstrasser, who was a solid performer for Purdue as a freshman. "One through six right now is really deep," Gaston said. "On any given day, I think any of our players can break par and shoot dynamite scores. Talent-wise, we can definitely [win the national title]." Forsyth also believes her corps can go the distance, and not just because of raw talent. "They really root for each other. If the team does well, they're truly happy about that," she said. "That's more important to them than how they did individually, and that's really rare. I've only had one other team that had that type of mentality, and that was our team that actually won the championship." |
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