With a 19-stroke advantage on the field to start the day, the California men’s golf team rolled through the third round at Meadow Club Tuesday on the way to winning the Alister MacKenzie Invitational for the second consecutive year.
Cal clinched the victory – its 13th in the MacKenzie’s 19-year history – with a 51-under-par performance (262-260-279). All five golfers in Cal’s “A” lineup that contributed to the team win shot 6-under or better throughout the 54-hole, two-day tournament, highlighted by a 15-under effort from Nathan Wang (65-63-70) that earned him third place individually. Wang entered Tuesday’s third round in sole possession of first place after a scorching first 36 holes, but ended up one shot behind co-medalists Treed Huang (-16) of UC Davis and Bastien Amat (-16) of New Mexico.
Runner-up honors went to New Mexico (-36) while San Jose State (-33), Saint Mary’s (-30) and Cal Poly (-26) rounded out the top five.
Tony Chen (-13) and Sampson Zheng (-6) posted Cal’s best third-round scores with 68s; the veteran duo finished sixth and 20th, respectively, while freshmen Ethan Fang (-8) and Eric Lee (-7) took 14th and 15th.
Cal’s “B” lineup posted a third-round 280 to finish in 11th overall. The group was paced by Ethan Chung (69-71-69), who twice shot 2-under in rounds 1 and 3 on the way to finishing in a tie for 28th. Charlie Berridge (-2) and Jeewon Park (-2) tied for 34th.
It’s the second event win of the fall season for the Bears, who teamed up with the Cal women on Sept. 28 to defeat Stanford in the annual Big Match.