Walter Chun finished his eighth season as Cal's Alex and Marie Shipman Director of Men's Golf and his 27th campaign associated with the school's men's golf program in 2023-24. He was relived of his duties on July 2, 2024.
The 2017-18 Pac-12 Coach of the Year, Chun was elevated to the role on Aug. 1, 2016 after seven seasons spent as Cal's associate head coach (2009-16), five as an assistant coach (2004-09) and two as an administrative assistant (2002-04) following a five-year playing career for the Golden Bears (1997-2002).
Chun has been a part of nine of Cal's 16 all-time NCAA Championship appearances as either a player or coach, including the program's back-to-back third-place finishes in 2012 and 2013 and most recently this past spring (2024), the program's second with Chun at the helm.
Chun's 2023-24 squad – anchored by All-Pac-12 First Team and GCAA/PING All-West Region Team selection Sampson Zheng and a pair of dynamic freshmen in Ethan Fang and Eric Lee – was nationally ranked throughout the 2024 spring slate and ultimately finished ranked 21st following a 19th-place finish at the NCAA Championships at Omni La Costa in Carlsbad. The 2023-24 Golden Bears amassed eight top-three finishes – including two tournament wins and four runner-up finishes – in 13 stroke-play events. The pair of wins came back-to-back in October at the Alister MacKenzie Invitational and the Cal Poly Invitational.
Chun landed the nation’s No. 3-ranked 2023 signing class, highlighted by Lee, the 2022 AJGA Rolex Junior Player of the Year, and Fang, who collected All-Pac-12 Second Team and GCAA/PING All-West Region Team honors after the 2023-24 season. The signing class continued a trend of promising young golfers joining the Bears under Chun; his first recruiting class as a head coach included three of Golfweek’s top-60 players in 2017, including Kaiwen Liu (No. 6), while his recruiting prowess was instrumental under GCAA and Cal Athletics Hall of Famer Steve Desimone as the program restocked the roster at the end of a golden era (2009-14) with highly-ranked classes in 2014 and 2015, led by Collin Morikawa, Sebastian Crampton and KK Limbhasut.
The 2022-23 campaign saw Chun guide the Bears back to NCAA postseason play for the first time since 2019, as they finished sixth in the NCAA Morgan Hill Regional. Cal amassed one tournament victory – a 21-under par effort at the Alister Mackenzie Invitational at Sonoma Golf Club in October – five top-five finishes and 12 top-10 finishes. Chun oversaw the development of Zheng, who earned GCAA All-America Second Team honors and finished his junior season ranked 15th nationally (Golfstat) after shooting 41-under par with an average of 69.83 strokes across 31 rounds played in 10 events.
Chun led the program to four top-five finishes and nine top-10 efforts throughout a pair of COVID-19-impacted seasons in 2019-20 and 2020-21. With the heaviest impacts of COVID-19 in the rearview in the 2021-22 season, the Bears totaled another seven top-10 finishes and placed fifth at the 2022 Pac-12 Championships as Zheng and Aaron Du established themselves as key pieces of the Cal lineup by earning All-Pac-12 Team honorable mentions. Chun’s program earned Cal Athletics’ Newmark Award (Small Team Division) – an annual honor given to the teams on campus with the top cumulative grade point average – all three seasons (2019-22).
Cal was ranked as high as No. 6 nationally (Golfweek/Sagarin) in the spring of the 2018-19 campaign on the way to its first NCAA Championships appearance with Chun at the helm and since 2016. The Bears placed 10th at NCAAs, tied for their best postseason finish since reaching back-to-back match play semifinals in 2012 and 2013. Cal won two events – the Ka'anapali Classic Collegiate Invitational and The Farms Invitational – and notched another five top-three efforts throughout the 2018-19 season.
Chun mentored two-time major championship winner Collin Morikawa through the later stages of his collegiate career, which culminated in Morikawa being named 2019 Pac-12 Men’s Golfer of the Year and becoming the fourth player in program history to win individual medalist honors at the Pac-12 Championships (2019). Morikawa was recognized as a GCAA All-American for the fourth time in 2018-19 – he is Cal’s only four-time All-American – and was named a finalist for the Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson and Jack Nicklaus Awards. Chun’s 2018-19 team also featured Sebastian Crampton and KK Limbhasut, who earned GCAA All-West Region selections for the second and fourth times in their careers, respectively.
Cal ranked among the nation’s top 10 for the majority of the 2017-18 season, resulting in Chun being recognized as the Pac-12 Coach of the Year in just his second year of leading the program. The Bears won for the first three times under Chun, including a signature victory against one of the top fields in the country at the Tavistock Collegiate Invitational after placing last at the event the previous season, as well as the Alister Mackenzie Invitational and Wyoming Desert Intercollegiate. Cal ranked ninth and 12th nationally in the Golfweek/Sagarin and Golfstat final polls, respectively, but a 10th-place finish at the NCAA Raleigh Regional kept the Bears out of the NCAA Championships. Morikawa averaged an NCAA-record 68.68 strokes per round and was named the Golfweek Men’s Golfer of the Year as a junior in 2017-18.
Chun’s first year as head coach in 2016-17 proved to be a challenging experience, as Cal missed NCAA postseason play for the first time since 2006. Though the Bears struggled as a unit, Chun oversaw a standout sophomore season by Morikawa, who was a semifinalist for both the Jack Nicklaus Player of the Year Award and the Ben Hogan Award while posting a then-school-record 69.94 stroke average that he broke one season later. Morikawa advanced to the NCAA Stanford Regional as an individual and tied for 12th.
Prior to stepping into the program’s lead position, Chun helped Desimone lead the Bears to new heights in seven seasons as an associate head coach. Cal reached the NCAA Championships in six of those seven campaigns (2010-14, ’16) following a five-year stretch without an appearance. In the 12 total seasons as an assistant (2004-09) or associate head coach (2009-16) under Desimone, Chun helped recruit and develop a long list of Cal standouts that went on to become top-notch professional golfers. The list includes 2014 Pac-12 Scholar-Athlete of the Year Brandon Hagy, 2013 NCAA and Pac-12 champion Max Homa, unanimous 2013 National Player of the Year Michael Kim, Byeong Hun An (Ben An) – the youngest champion in U.S. Amateur history at the age of 17 in 2009 and Joël Stalter, among others.
Chun’s impact was felt alongside Desimone during the program’s golden era from 2009-14, which saw the Bears reach the NCAA Championships a school-record five consecutive years. The Bears won 24 of 40 stroke-play events and were among the top five on 38 occasions over the final three seasons of the golden era. Cal set a single-season NCAA record with 12 stroke-play victories in 2012-13 – a year in which the Bears were widely thought to have played the best season in collegiate golf history – and spent nearly the entire year as the nation’s top-ranked team before suffering a defeat in the semifinals of the NCAA Championships.
Chun’s affiliation with Cal began in 1997 as a men’s golf student-athlete. A two-time team captain for the Bears, Chun competed in three NCAA West Regionals (2000-02) and once at the NCAA Championships (2000). He qualified for two U.S. Amateur Championships in 1999 at Pebble Beach and 2002 at Oakland Hills Country Club. In the 2007-08 season, Chun was recognized nationally for his coaching exploits when he was honored with the Jan Strickland Award as the nation’s top assistant coach. He then served as an assistant coach for Team USA at the Arnold Palmer Cup the following summer in June of 2009.
Chun earned a pair of degrees at Cal with a bachelor’s from the Haas School of Business in 2001 and a master’s from the Graduate School of Education in 2003. He was a three-time Pac-10 All-Academic selection (2000-02), a two-time All-America Scholar (2001-02) and received the 2001-02 Pac-10 Leadership Award.
THE CHUN FILE
Education
- Alma Mater: California, 2001 & 2003 (BS, Business; MA, Education)
Playing Experience
Coaching/Professional Experience
- 2002-04: California (Administrative Assistant)
- 2004-09: California (Assistant Coach)
- 2009-16: California (Associate Head Coach)
- 2016-24: California (Head Coach)
Accolades
- Pac-12 Coach of the Year (2017-18)
- Jan Strickland Assistant Coach of the Year (2007-08)
- Arnold Palmer Cup Team USA Assistant Coach (2009)
- Pac-10 Leadership Award (2001-02)
- 2x GCAA Scholar All-American (2000-01, 2001-02)
- 3x Pac-10 All-Academic Team (1999-2000, 2000-01, 2001-02)
Updated: July 2, 2024
