MALIBU, California – Two-time All-American Sahith Theegala of the Pepperdine men's golf team will sit out the fall season with a wrist injury and is likely to redshirt the 2018-19 season, he announced today.
 
Plagued by the injury for much of this year, Theegala (Chino Hills, Calif./Diamond Bar HS) has been resting the wrist and hasn't been playing golf as of late. He will be assessed again in November to determine the next step in his recovery.
 
"It's a bummer," the Waves' senior said. "There's no concrete timetable to return with this injury. I wanted to have a good senior season and turn pro, but that's going to wait a year. But in the long term, it's going to give myself a chance to play with a healthy body, and add to my education."
 
A sport administration major, Theegala will add a marketing minor to his classload.
 
Even without Theegala, the Waves will still have the other four players that were part of the lineup for last year's West Coast Conference championship, and they've added two talented freshmen to the mix. The WCC's coaches voted the Waves the favorite for the league title again in 2019.
 
Pepperdine Coach Michael Beard said: "Getting Sahith healthy is number one, and how that affects the team is secondary. After looking at the pros and cons, it made the most sense to Sahith to take a year to get healthy, and build back up for hopefully a great senior year and an easier transition to professional golf. This takes away any sense of urgency to get healthy and maybe come back too early and have to start the process over.
 
"It's going to hurt us this year. To lose a two-time All-American from the lineup, it's going to hurt, no question. But it's best for him, and to have him back as a fifth-year senior next year will be special. We have the potentially to be really solid next year with the team that we'll have. This year, it's going to force guys to step up. Our established guys are going to need to bring their 'A' game every week. Our sophomores played some last year and they need to be be ready to take the challenge on. The freshmen are going to have more opportunities for playing time."
 
Despite dealing with the injury during his spring season, Theegala is coming off a junior year in which he became just the fourth Pepperdine men's golfer ever to earn All-American honors in multiple years. He made Golfweek's third team and GCAA/PING honorable mention in 2017-18, while earning GCAA/PING third team and Golfweek honorable mention in 2016-17.
 
Theegala also collected his third PING All-West Region and third All-WCC first team honors this past season as a junior. He ended the season ranked #25 by Golfweek/Sagarin and #50 by Golfstat. Theegala led the team with a 70.86 scoring average, which ranks second in program history. He won the 2018 Waves Challenge by a Pepperdine-record 16 shots, one of six top-10 and nine top-20 finishes, both of which tied for team bests. Theegala was on the Ben Hogan and Fred Haskins awards watch lists.
 
Through three seasons, Theegala's career scoring average of 70.95 is the best in program history. He's also second on the records list for below-par rounds with 57.
 
This past summer, he played through his injury to be part of the U.S. team that competed at the Arnold Palmer Cup in France.
 
The Waves finished third at the season-opening William H. Tucker Intercollegiate last week and are next in action at California's Alister MacKenzie Invitational next week (Oct. 8-9).