Photo credit – Albert Chang
The No. 22 California men’s golf team shot a Western Intercollegiate-low 344 in the third round to climb the leaderboard and finish in third place on Wednesday at Pasatiempo Golf Club.
The Golden Bears finished the 54-hole tournament at 14-over-par (356-364-344 – 1,064), with the 6-under 344 in the final round serving as the lowest 18-hole score in the 14-team field across three days of play. Sampson Zheng led the charge on Wednesday, carding three birdies over his final five holes to finish with a 4-under 66 and tied for fourth place individually at 2-under, just two strokes behind individual medalist Filip Jakubcik (-4) of Arizona.
Stanford (+8) won the title with Washington (+13) as the runner up. Oregon (+15) and Arizona (+17) rounded out an All-Pac-12 top five.
Zheng – who earned his third consecutive top-10 finish dating back to early March – was one of four Golden Bears that shot under par Wednesday, with Ethan Fang (+4, T-25th), Aaron Du (+5, T-34th) and Kuangyu (Tony) Chen (+7, T-39th) all carding 1-under 69s in the third round. Cal’s five counted scorers amassed 11 birdies to just four bogeys throughout the final nine holes of play. Eric Lee, who shot 1-over 71, was Cal’s second-best finisher in the tournament with a tie for 14th.
It was Cal’s seventh top-five finish – and sixth top-three finish – in nine stroke-play events this season.