For the second straight season, Illinois men’s golf finishes behind UCLA in the Big Ten Championships as the Illini’s 15-shot comeback falls just short.

By Matt Stevens - IlliniGuys Staff Writer

For the third consecutive season, Illinois will head home from the Big Ten Championships with a second-place finish and for the second straight time it was the same team one spot above the Illini.

In back-to-back years UCLA topped Illinois as the Bruins remained undefeated in the conference title event as a Big Ten Conference member with the 2026 version seeing UCLA survive what was nearly a historic comeback effort from Mike Small’s Illini squad.

Starting the day 15 strokes back and in third place, Illinois actually managed to make up the entire deficit before the final group reached the 15th tee. However, UCLA’s top players played the final three holes of Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club in North Plains, Oregon brilliantly to build back their winning four-stroke margin.

Illinois got some early momentum from the efficient and courageous effort of second-year player Trey Marrion. The native of Chesapeake, Va., fired the best round of the day, a 5-under 65, that included birdies on each of the final two holes. The 20-year-old played this kind of golf just 24 hours after being substituted from the lineup on Saturday with a medical illness he arrived on site trying to deal with.

The Illini comeback effort was then passed on to the Illini’s two veteran leaders as senior Ryan Voois and Max Herendeen both had under-par rounds through the first 14 holes of their day.

The pressure being put on UCLA, which started the day 11 shots ahead of Washington and 15 ahead of Illinois for the team title after a jaw-dropping 11-under team round on Saturday, was started to be seen by the time Big Ten Network picked up its live coverage. By the time all five UCLA players finished the first 14 holes, the Bruins didn’t have a single scorecard under par to that point.

By the time Marrion sank his birdie putt on the the 545-yard finishing hole in the Illini’s opening group and Herendeen buried a birdie on the par-3, 175-yard 15th hole in the anchor pairing, Illinois had brought the team competition all the way back to a tie.

Voois, who finished tied for third in the individual medalist title, jumped nine positions on the leaderboard on Sunday with a 4-under 66 that included six birdies.

The roller coaster ride of Herendeen’s Sunday experience began with a bogey-double bogey stretch on No. 4 and No. 5 being countered by a birdie-eagle stretch to conclude his first nine action. Herendeen would play a nine-hole stretch between No. 8 to No. 16 at an impressive 5-under without a bogey but couldn’t keep the momentum going on his way to the clubhouse. Herendeen’s drive on the 17th hole while he was two down to UCLA’s Josh Kim with two holes left, found a horrible lie in the right rough near a bunker where the Illini’s third-year star couldn’t get a stance to do anything but chip the ball back left into the fairway. Herendeen compounded his mistake off the tee box by missing the green on his third shot on the short side of the 17th hole eventually resulting in a double bogey allowing the UCLA freshman to cruise to the individual title.

Instead of put his game in cruise control, Kim would go birdie-birdie on No. 16 and No. 17 to win the tournament by a hard-charging Finn Koelle of Washington, who shot a back-nine 31 in the same group as Kim and Herendeen. Kim, a 19-year-old freshman from Danville, Calif., was one of the nation’s best junior players in the country before signing with UCLA last summer. He was three-time Rolex Junior All-American and recipient of the 2025 Byron Nelson International Junior Golf Award before he ever played in a collegiate tournament. In his first Big Ten Championship event, Kim was the only player in the field with three consecutive under-par rounds.

In its second spring season in the Big Ten Conference, UCLA remains undefeated in both the team and individual men’s golf titles.

“It's extra special for a lot of reasons,” UCLA head coach Armen Kirakossian said on the Big Ten Network. “One, for us to go back-to-back, just really cool to come and validate it from last season. And this is where I grew up, up in Portland, Oregon, so I've had my family here. For us to have back-to-back individual champions, this has been really special three days of tournament golf,”

The tied for third individual finish for both Voois and Herendeen are their best career finishes in the Big Ten Championships and could serve as momentum for the Illini that their top two veteran players are playing at a high level heading into NCAA regional play in two weeks.

The Illini will now wait to see which site they will play its NCAA regional competition. Six NCAA regional sites will include a total of 81 teams. The regional field will be revealed in a selection show on Wednesday, May 6, at 1 p.m. CST on The Golf Channel and regional play will begin Monday, May 18.

2026 Big Ten Men’s Golf Championship Team Leaderboard

UCLA - 281-269-282--832 (-8)

ILLINOIS - 279-286-271--836 (-4)

Washington - 281-280-281--842 (+2)

Rutgers - 287-285-278--850 (+10)

Southern California - 293-277-284--854 (+14)

Penn State - 291-285-280--856 (+16)

Purdue - 295-275-286--856 (+16)

Nebraska - 284-286-287--857 (+17)

Northwestern - 285-292-281--858 (+18)

Minnesota - 285-288-285-858 (+18)

Michigan - 288-283-288--859 (+19)

Michigan State - 298-281-283--862 (+22)

Oregon - 290-286-286--862 (+22)

Maryland - 292-286-293--871 (+31)

Iowa - 293-288-295--876 (+36)

Wisconsin - 296-293-289--878 (+38)

Indiana - 294-293-291--878 (+38)

Ohio State - 297-293-295--885 (+45)

ILLINOIS PLAYERS

Ryan Voois 72-69-66--207 (-3)

Max Herendeen 68-69-70--207 (-3)

Freddie Turnell 67-74-70--211 (+1)

Dane Huddleston 72-74-70--216 (+6)

Trey Marrion 72-N/A-65

Jake Birdwell N/A-75-N/A