When the UCLA female golf team started its 2024-25 season, the Bruins returned a pair of All-Americans to a list that added one of the country’s best-classified recruits. A return to the national championship match, where UCLA found herself last spring in Omni the Costa Resort & Spa, was not out of the question.
Going towards the co-host tournament of Bruins alongside Pepperdine in Valencia Country Club, which the rest of the season held them was questionable. The two All-Americans were no longer part of the team, instead of giving up the rest of their senior years to continue professional opportunities. The off -competition recruit had not yet exploded, not even able to qualify for the first UCLA spring tournament in Palos Verdes. UCLA coach Alicia Um Holmes tried to keep him together for his team.
“We just completed and we got together,” she said. “Really, it was almost like a blank slate, a restart with this group.”
UCLA, ranked 25th in the NCAA golf course ranking, fled from the field to win the Bruin Wave intercolllegate, beating second place Baylor by 22 shots. Francesca Fiorellini, the first entirely praised student in Italy, experienced a record performance, drawing 9 under 207 for her first college victory. She beat her teammate Tiffany le, who played as an individual, by 10 shots. His performance of 9 sous is the lowest score in the history of the tournament, going beyond the former Golfer of Pepperdine Danielle Kang in 8 under 2010.
“(The team) has become serious in training and training,” said UM Holmes. “I think they have just used it as motivation to come here and make changes on which they worked and engage with them.”
These changes begin with Fiorellini, whose mandate of the college has taken a difficult start. Faced with certain pressures from her house to become a pro instead of going to university, she came to the UCLA wanting to prove that she made the right decision, but it was anything but easy for Golfer No. 22 in the classification of world amateur golf. She did not have a top 10 in four fall starts. Doubt began to slip.
She returned home for the winter holidays and her return to tie in fifth row of qualifications before the regional challenge of Therese Hession. A playoff series was used to determine fifth place, and Fiorellini was out of alignment.
Then during a training session in Valencia a few weeks before the Bruin Wave invitation, Fiorellini fired 10.
She only played 12 holes.
“She was quite out of her game, Um Holmes said:” And for her to return it and be mentally strong and start to engage in some of the swing thoughts she had …
“When I watched it, we were doing tests, she struck like lasers on the target, then we went to course, and because she had this extreme pressure, she could not swing as she wanted. So she sort of dropped.
Fiorellini was the only player to finish under the peer, and maybe this week may be a springboard for her and push her to become the next face of the UCLA golf course, where there is a big hole to fill.
After the fall season, Zoe Campos decided to leave school to become a pro so that she could play in the last qualification of the LPGA in winter. Senior colleague Caroline Canales returned to school and placed T-23 in Palos Verdes when the spring was opened, after this tournament decided to leave the team to focus on her professional career. In the blink of an eye, two pillars on the UCLA list, the players who contributed to their national finalist less than a year ago, were completed.
With Fiorellini’s victory on Tuesday, she showed that she was able to direct the Bruins for the rest of the year.
“I have heard people who somehow surround us to doubt what we can do, and I’m not saying that we are going to do something similar to last year,” said Holmes. “Last year was special, but it just gives our team a little more confidence in the future.”
With Fiorellini opening the way and the renewed state of mind of the team, the Bruins have a lot of confidence to move forward.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: The women of the UCLA win Bruin Wave Invitational, Francesca Fiorellini wins Indy
