Golden Bears Set For NCAA Championships

CARLSBAD – No. 20 California opens competition at the 2024 NCAA Men's Golf Championships on Friday afternoon at Omni La Costa's North Course. The Golden Bears – the 15th seed in the 30-team championship field after finishing second at the NCAA Rancho Santa Fe Regional last week – will tee off between 1:50-2:34 p.m. PT Friday and 8:30-9:14 a.m. Saturday, playing alongside 13th-seeded Georgia Tech and 14th-seeded East Tennessee State in both stroke-play rounds.
 
The Golden Bears are back at the NCAA Championships for the 16th time in program history and the first time since 2019, when they placed 10th. They won the 2004 NCAA Championship and finished as semifinalists in back-to-back years in 2012 and 2013.
 
CHAMPIONSHIP INFO

• Dates: May 24-29, 2024
• Location: Carlsbad, California | Omni La Costa North Course
• Course Info: Par 72 | 7,538 Yards
• Host: Texas
• Watch: Golf Channel (Monday-Wednesday)
• Live Scoring: Golfstat
• Pairings: Golfstat

CHAMPIONSHIP FORMAT
All 30 teams and six individuals will complete 54 holes of stroke play, with 18 holes on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, respectively. Following 54 holes of competition, the top 15 teams along with the top nine individuals not on an advancing team will advance for one additional round of stroke play on Monday to determine the top eight teams for match-play competition and the 72-hole stroke-play individual champion. The top eight teams after 72 holes of play will be placed into a bracket thereafter.
 
In team match-play competition, a total of five points will be available with one point being awarded for each individual match. Winning teams will advance to the semifinals and subsequently, the finals. The first team to win three points within the team match will advance, or in the case of the final match, be declared the national champion.
 
OFF THE TEE
1. Sampson Zheng
2. Eric Lee
3. Ethan Fang
4. Nathan Wang
5. Kuangyu (Tony) Chen
Substitute – Daniel Heo
 
CHIP SHOTS

• Cal shot its lowest 18-hole score of the Rancho Santa Fe Regional with a third-round 1-under-par 279 last Wednesday and advanced to the NCAA Championships with a second-place finish. The Golden Bears shot 3-over-par for the 54-hole regional, finishing behind only Oklahoma.
• The Golden Bears have eight top-three finishes – including two tournament wins and four runner-up finishes – in 12 stroke-play events this season, most recently including back-to-back second-place efforts in Rancho Santa Fe and at the Pac-12 Championship. The pair of wins came back-to-back in October at the Alister MacKenzie Invitational and the Cal Poly Invitational.
• All five Golden Bears in the Cal lineup will make their NCAA Championship debuts in Carlsbad.
• Senior Sampson Zheng will continue to anchor the Cal lineup. Zheng – the 19th-ranked player in the country (Clippd) and a 2023-24 All-Pac-12 First Team selection – tied for second with a 4-under-par 206 at the Rancho Santa Fe Regional last week and has five consecutive top-10 finishes dating back to the start of March.
• Freshmen Eric Lee and Ethan Fang have bolstered Cal's lineup throughout the 2023-24 campaign, and further proved themselves in Rancho Santa Fe last week. Lee, who won his collegiate debut at the Marquette Invitational last September, has five additional top-15 finishes including a tie for seventh in regional play last week. Fang – who placed third at the Pac-12 Championship and has five top-15 finishes this season – was voted onto the All-Pac-12 Second Team and Pac-12 All-Freshman Team.
• Nathan Wang and Kuangyu (Tony) Chen round out the Cal lineup. Wang replaced Chen in the Cal lineup after the first round of the Rancho Santa Fe Regional last week and went on to shoot an even-par 36-hole 140, highlighted by a third-round 67. Chen, a mainstay in the lineup with 31 rounds played this season, won the Cal Poly Invitational with a 10-under-par 206 in the fall and has finished inside the top 25 five more times.
• Current PGA standout Max Homa is the lone Golden Bear to win the NCAA individual title, claiming individual medalist honors in 2013.
• Cal reached the NCAA Championships six times in a seven-year span between 2010-16.
• The Golden Bears have held a national ranking for the entire spring season, ranking as high as No. 17 (Clippd).
• Zheng is 12th in the latest PGA TOUR University rankings, moving up three spots following his NCAA Regional performance. Players who finish No. 6-10 will earn conditional membership on Korn Ferry Tour for the remainder of the 2024 season and are exempt on PGA TOUR Americas for the remainder of the 2024 season. They are also exempt into Second Stage of PGA TOUR Q-School presented by Korn Ferry.
• Walter Chun, Cal's Alex and Marie Shipman Director of Men's Golf, has been a part of nine of the program's NCAA Championship appearances as either a coach or player.

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