Cal Seventh After First Day At Pac-12 Championships

SAMMAMISH, Wash. – Cal (361-364 – 725, +15) is in seventh place after the first 36 holes were played Monday on the opening day of the Pac-12 Championships at the par-71, 6979-yard Aldarra Golf Club. Cal has three golfers in the top 16 halfway through the 72-hole event with Aaron Du (72-71 – 143, +1) tied for 12th, while Tony Chen (75-69 – 144, +2) and Sampson Zheng (71-73 – 144, +2) are tied for 16th.

Host Washington (346-360 – 706, -4) sits atop the team leaderboard after two rounds four strokes better than second-place Arizona State (346-364 – 710, E) with the Huskies and Sun Devils the only two squads at par or better. Stanford's Barclay Brown (68-67 – 135, -7) is one stroke ahead of Washington's Noah Woolsey (65-71 – 136, -6) at the top of the player leaderboard.

Ethan Chung (69-78 – 147, +5) is the next Cal player on the leaderboard in a tie for 40th. Chung had been tied for seventh after shooting the Golden Bears' best first round and equaling Chen's second round for Cal's top round of the day with a two-under par 69. Chung was six-under par with seven birdies through the first 14 holes before bogeying each of the final four holes. Simon Kwon (76-74 – 150, +8) and Charlie Berridge (74-77 – 151, +9) are also in Cal's six-player lineup in a tie for 53rd place and sole possession of 57th.

Cal played the two par fives on the back nine in 10-under par as a team. In addition to Chung's first 14 holes of round one that included three birdies in a row twice (11, 12, 13; 3, 4, 5), other individual hot stretches in the first round included Zheng birdies on 11 and 12, as well Du birdies on the par-three second and par-five third also. Berridge and Chung each also birdied 11 and 12 in the second round, while Du birded 12 and the par-three 13th in back-to-back fashion. Du and Zheng also had Cal's lone two eagles of the day on the 12th hole of the first round and 11th hole of the second, respectively.

"We had some really good stretches of golf today and then some tough stretches," Cal's Alex and Marie Shipman Director of Men's Golf Walter Chun said. "That's just how this course is. You have to play well on the getable holes and try to hang in there on the hard ones. We hung tough, and with two more rounds to go, we need to keep our noses down and keep at it."

The third round of the Pac-12 Championships is scheduled for Tuesday with the first tee time at 10 am PT. Berridge will start Cal off from the 10th tee at 10:05 am and be followed in 12-minute increments by Kwon, Chung, Chen, Zheng and Du.