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
![](https://wisconsingolftrips.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Erin-Hills-Golf-Course-Hole-9-Aerial-STOCK-GR.jpg)
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