The fifth seeded U.C.L.A. Men's Golf Team started play at the 2012 NCAA Championships yesterday and opened with a solid first round 289, five shots over par. I said solid as the round was good enough to find themselves in a tie for 4th place with Oklahoma, but the Bruins still have a ways to go as they are 4 shots behind leader Alabama. Florida and Auburn are 2nd and 3rd, respectively.

The NCAA tournament format features 3 rounds of stroke play. Each team will start five players, and the the top 4 scores out of those 5 each day will count towards the overall team score. The top 8 teams from stroke play will then be seeded for match play beginning Friday.

The tournament continues today with the Bruins playing with Auburn and *$c in the second round, with the first players having just teed off a few minutes ago.

Travel should not be an issue for our team, as the tournament is being played at the beautiful and historic Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, just 5 miles from campus down Sunset. For any Bruins in the area, Riviera is near the intersection of San Vicente and 26th St in Santa Monica, so you should get out to the venue to cheer on our team this week. An overview of the course can be found here.

Individually, Bruins sophomore Anton Arboleda had the low round of the day with a 67 (-4) and is currently in first place. Sophomore Patrick Cantlay, junior Pedro Figueiredo and junior Pontus Widegren each shot a +3 74 and are tied with a large group at 62nd overall. The 5th Bruin golfer was senior Alex Kim who shot a 76. His round did not count in the Bruins' team score.

Tee times for the Bruins today are: Kim at 7:20, Arboleda at 7:30, Widegren at 7:40, Figueiredo at 7:50, and Cantlay at 8:00 (all times Pacific).

You can follow live scoring for both the team and individual players at the official NCAA site here.

This will be our open thread to follow along and root on the team today, and hope they can break the recent drought in men's titles. Go Bruins!