University of California, Los Angeles, Athletics
Postmatch Quotes - Men's Golf NCAA Championships
POST-MATCH QUOTES
No. 1-seed Auburn 3, No. 7-seed UCLA 0
Carlsbad, Calif. (Omni La Costa Resort & Spa)
National Championship Match
June 3, 2026
UCLA Head Coach Armen Kirakossian
on the challenges of todayโs match and facing a very good Auburn team
โYeah, they played amazing today. They are a great team, and on top of that, they played awesome today.โ
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on what he saw on the course and how todayโs match unfolded
โI think that we got off to a bit of a rough start. I mean, nerves are normal. This is the first time that our guys have been in the match play portion and the first time that they have been in the national championship finals. We came out a little nervous and gave them some holes early. Against a team like that, you just cannot do that and you canโt get away with it. Auburn continued to just play awesome, and I thought our guys were solid. They steadied the ship a little bit. We were keeping some matches close. But eventually, Auburn got on a little bit of a run on 7, 8 and 11, where they were just hitting really good shots and really difficult pins. They made birdies on holes that, frankly, people all week were not making birdies on. You just canโt do much about that.โ
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on UCLAโs success in this tournament and advancing to the final match
โI think it says a lot about our guysโ heart and buy-in to what we are doing and what we are trying to build. Thatโs part of my message that I just told the guys. We do not get here this far, without how much they cared for each other, for the program and for UCLA. So that is what I think it shows. Itโs a group of really gutty guys that have big hearts and are willing to compete and give it everything all the time.โ
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on Josh Kim winning his match as a freshman and his bright future
โWell, our future is obviously really exciting when you have two freshmen like Josh Kim and Tyler Loree and sophomore Baylor Larrabee. We are excited about what we have moving forward. I know that theyโre going to be really hungry to get themselves back in this position.โ
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on sophomore Baylor Larrabee and where heโs made the most improvement
โHis mentality, I mean, heโs grown so much, and there is so much maturity on the golf course and controlling his emotion. Heโs not letting bad shots get in his way of having good rounds. He understands that he doesnโt need to have his โAโ game to shoot good scores. I could tell that when he got to the course this year, he was just a different person. Last year, his mind was a little bit spiraling, and he thought that the moment was a little too big for him and he was chasing pins. This year, he was so disciplined the entire time. He never got rattled. There were multiple times where I could see he was in a tough situation, a tough break, and he handled it like a champ. It was not shocking to me that he finished top 10 in this tournament.โ
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on having such a young team and if this success really raises the level of expectation for next season
โWe have a consistent message that every day, every shot and every round is a new one. So yes, this is great for momentum and for our guysโ experience, but this is just part of their learning and building and growth process. But our teamโs ultimate goal is to get back to this situation. But we will have to show up next year and re-earn everything, just like we have had to do this year. That will be the message to the guys over the summer, itโs, โHey if you want to be back here [in this championship], itโs going to take a lot of hard work and it doesnโt matter next year, when we are in regionals that we were in this position, weโll still have to get through regionals and go through what we did in stroke play.โ Yeah, it is a continual process but there is no doubt that this process will help them grow. This will accelerate their growth process for sure.โ
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on Mondayโs final round of stroke play and that turning into a bit of a roller coaster experience
โI always believe that everything happens for a reason. While in that moment, I didnโt understand what that reason was, I think that by dropping those strokes and putting us into that playoff, it kind of put our guys on edge. It put our guys into a hyper-intense and competitive zone that kind of prepared them for match play. By putting them on edge, it got them into the mindset and the zone that they needed to be in to have success in the match-play portion. Those matches are so intense and they kind of got a little taste of it. And two, the unity. I mean, we were already a tight-knit team, but when youโve got five guys playing and that celebration, it just felt like this big boost of energy. I think thatโs what spurred us on to be able to take on a team like Texas and then Arizona.โ
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on what the development of these players and of this team means to him
โWe won an event in the fall, we won the Big Ten Championships, we had two wins coming in here. Last year, we did make it through regionals and into nationals, so weโve been building. But we did not make it past the stroke play portion. Yeah, itโs a nice progression. You make it through last year, and you get to nationals and then you donโt have the success that we wanted. And then this year, we got back and we made it a lot further. Again, I never take these moments for granted. Like Iโve said, we will have to go and do it again next year. Weโll have to re-earn everything, but it is certainly a nice upward trajectory, for sure.โ
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