UC San Diego men's golf will play 10 regular-season tournaments before one last Big West Championship, beginning Thursday at Colorado State's Ram Masters Invitational. The schedule released Tuesday stretches from Fort Collins to Oahu and brings the Tritons home to Torrey Pines for their annual March event.
The opening stop carries a useful benchmark. UCSD has played the Ram Masters three times, and Davis McDowell won the 2025 individual title at six under while the Tritons placed fifth. McDowell is no longer listed among the four returners in the new-season announcement, so the same course will test a reshaped lineup rather than recreate last year's result.
Colorado remains the setting for the second event. The Air Force Academy hosts the Falcon Invitational from Sept. 19 through 21 at Eisenhower Golf Club in Colorado Springs. UCSD placed third in a 23-team field there last year, with McDowell fifth at seven under. The back-to-back trips put altitude and travel into the first 11 days of competition.
Two October and November events close the fall. The Tritons return to the Visit Stockton Pacific Invitational from Oct. 12 to 14 after a fourth-place team finish there in 2025, when current senior Justin Gill tied for fifth. They then travel to the Pearl at Kalauao Invitational in Aiea, Hawaii, where Nathan Tseng won last fall and UCSD finished second among 18 teams.
Spring begins with a new entry, the Wyoming Desert Intercollegiate in Palm Desert from Feb. 22 to 24. The Watney Invitational in Fresno follows March 1 and 2. UCSD finished third at that event last season. Repeated venues give coaches direct comparisons, but roster turnover means a lower or higher score will not by itself explain development.
The schedule's local anchor arrives March 21 through 23. UCSD will stage the seventh edition of its invitational at Torrey Pines, where it placed third this past spring for its best result since the event moved oceanside in 2023. Hosting reduces travel, not difficulty: course setup and the invited field still determine how much home familiarity is worth.
A first appearance at Wyoming's Cowboy Classic in Arizona closes March. The Tritons then return to the El Macero Classic near Davis from April 9 to 11 and the Redhawk Invitational at Chambers Bay on April 19 and 20. UCSD has played both events every year since 2022, finishing third at the 2026 Redhawk.
The Big West Championship is May 2 through 4 at La Quinta Country Club. UCSD tied for fourth in the 10-team field last season. It will be the program's last conference tournament in the Big West before UC San Diego athletics joins the West Coast Conference on July 1, 2027.
Gill leads a returning group that also includes sophomores Ethan Lien and Hanjie Yu and redshirt freshman Austin Woods. Freshmen Cole Kim, Branden Wong and Jerry Zsu join them. The schedule supplies history at nearly every stop; the question is which part of that history the smaller returning core can carry into a transition season.