USC’s Wright Is Still Chasing Tiger

Interest in Pacific 10 Conference men’s golf this season mostly revolved around Tiger Woods, who squeezed a freshman season at Stanford in between winning the U.S. Amateur championship in August and finishing as the low amateur at the Masters in April. With Woods in the conference, there is little room in the spotlight for others.

USC’s Chad Wright knows all about that. He estimates that he has played against Woods 20 times in the last eight years and usually has finished behind him.

As a senior at Ventura Buena High, Wright finished second to Woods, who was a junior at Anaheim Western High, in the CIF Southern Section championships.

“I think [Woods] provided more competition and helped raise my game to an even higher level,” Wright said. “I was trying to beat him and so, in the process, it made me an even better player.”

Wright recently has drawn a little attention to himself.

A sophomore, he has been USC’s most consistent player, averaging a team-leading 74.1 strokes a round. He has led the Trojans in five tournaments, including the Pac-10’s, in which he placed sixth with a score of 290 over 72 holes at Richland, Wash., on May 3. Woods did not play in the Pac-10 tournament because of a shoulder injury.

Wright’s score helped USC to fourth place, behind Arizona State, California and Arizona.

“It’s always one of the strongest conferences in college golf, and for us to make a good showing there, basically confirmed that we have improved,” said first-year USC Coach Kurt Schuette, who formerly coached at Pepperdine.

The performance gave the Trojans a lift heading into the NCAA West Regional tournament, which begins today at Albuquerque, N.M.

UCLA and Pepperdine also will play in the regional.

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The UCLA men’s track and field team will be trying for its fourth consecutive Pac-10 championship, and the UCLA women’s team will be trying for its third at the conference meet, beginning Friday at Tucson.

Top athletes for the UCLA men’s team are Ato Boldon, a junior transfer from San Jose City College whose 10.01 wind-aided finish in the 100 meters in April is the nation’s best collegiate mark this season, and John Godina, a three-time NCAA champion who holds the world’s best mark in the shotput after a 69-foot 2-inch put at the Modesto meet on Saturday.

Amy Acuff, a two-time NCAA champion in the high jump, will lead the UCLA women, along with Dawn Dumble, a three-time NCAA shotput champion, and Valetya Althouse, who has the nation’s best mark in the shot this season, 59-8 1/2.

The USC men’s team features two-time NCAA hammer throw champion Balazs Kiss, and the USC women will be led by Sau Ying Chan, the defending Pac-10 champion in the 100-meter high hurdles, and sprinter La Tima Jones.

University Beat Notes

UCLA and USC will participate in the NCAA women’s golf tournament May 24-27, at Wilmington, N.C. . . . After the UCLA women’s tennis team lost a grueling, 6 1/2-hour match to Stanford, 5-4, Sunday in the NCAA tournament at Pepperdine, UCLA Coach Bill Zaima vowed that there would be an all-UCLA singles final on May 21. “We’re going to lick our wounds and come back to win the singles and doubles,” Zaima said. UCLA’s top two singles players, Jane Chi and Keri Phebus, won their opening matches in the singles tournament, which began Wednesday.

Jennifer Brundage hit a home run in her first at-bat this season for the UCLA softball team and hasn’t slowed since. Her .517 batting average leads the nation and she has a school-record 13 home runs. She also is tied for first place in the UCLA record book with 19 homers in her career and holds the record for doubles, with 45. She has had at least two hits in the last 11 games for second-ranked UCLA (43-6), which will play Campbell University of North Carolina (47-23) Friday in the first round of an NCAA regional tournament at Columbia, S.C.