cal finishes the marquette intercollegiate at erin hills in 2nd place at +14 & 3 strokes behind winner chattanooga at the former us open venue
what did we learn?
1)
eric lee is a generational talent, he needs to be exempt from qualifying for tournaments along with sampson...if eric wuz in the 5 player scoring lineup the bears finish +1 &
win this tournament by a runaway 10 strokes...just like homakawa he rolled in clutch birdies on the 16th & 18th holes to co share the tournament championship trophy
https://instagr.am/p/Cw1JvIuv0Rd2)
sampson zheng finished at -2 for the tournament & is one of the top golfers in the nation...bet
3) the play at the 2023 us amateur (missing 64 player match play by only 1 stroke out of an elite field of 312 golfers) wuz not a fluke as emerging
tony chen finished tied for 12th & is poised for an absolutely breakout season
4) true freshman from plano texas
ethan fang got his promising college career started with a solid tie for 19th finish
5)
ethan chung hit a lotta good shots enroute to 6 birdies in the 3 rounds but wuz undermined by 5 double bogeys, gotta do a better job with damage control/risk management in future tournaments
6)
daniel heo is not gonna get married at the erin hills clubhouse someday
7) the coaching staff needs to do a better job of strategizing club selections with the team in the future on par 3s...today's 3 double bogey 5s on the par 3 9th hole cost the bears a trophy (a couple of pars would've changed the tournament outcome)...walter chun & peter ireland should've directed their players to shoot for the middle of the green on this diabolical short downhill par 3 with strong winds that wreak havoc on the aerial high flighted trajectory of short irons, the back right pin position as seen in the foto below is particularly nefarious
monster moral of the story: bringing jaylen brown off the bench & not starting him is a mistake
next tournament is in seattle on september 18th & 19th, this is shaping up to be a season for the ages