May 28, 2013
NCAA Championship Coverage
Bear Blog |  Cal Clips | NCAA Championship Guide: PDF
Twitter Time
The Golden Bears have broken a modern-era single-season NCAA record with 11 victories in their first 13 tournaments of 2012-13, eclipsing the previous record of 10 held by the 1985-86 Oklahoma State. Tweet your congratulations to @CalMensGolf.
Connect With Cal
Facebook | @CalAthletics | YouTube
|
MILTON, Ga. - No. 1 Cal is in fifth place after firing a three-under par 277 in Tuesday's first round of stroke play at the 2013 NCAA Championship being played at the par-70, 7,319 yard Crabapple Course at the Capital City Club. Brandon Hagy led the way with a four-under par 66 that was the lowest round by a Cal player at the NCAA Championship since Jeff Hood posted an opening-round five-under par 65 in the first round of the 2004 NCAA's when Cal won its lone national title.
Cal spent most of its round Tuesday in the middle of the 30-team leaderboard before a late surge that saw the club play its final five holes in five-under par after playing its first 13 in two-over. Cal started its round on the 10th hole and played what is considered to be the tougher part of the course first in the back nine.
"I sure feel a lot better at the end of the round than I did in the middle," head coach Steve Desimone said. "I really give the guys credit for doing what they've done all year. They dug in. But the golf course is really two different nines. Our goal was to hold steady on that back nine that we started on and then there's some birdie holes over on this side. We were able to take advantage of those and play ourselves back into the tournament."
After playing his first 11 holes in even par with a birdie on the par-five 12th and his lone bogey of the round on the par-four 14th, Hagy caught fire with four birdies over his final seven holes, including three in a row on the par-three sixth, and par-four seventh and eighth. The hot stretch started when he drained a 30-footer for birdie on the par-three third.
"At any point Brandon can get going," Desimone said. "Nobody really did much and then all of a sudden Brandon made a good birdie on three and you could kind of see his confidence rise. One of the hallmarks of this team all year is that at any time any of these five guys can get it going and today was Brandon's turn. I wouldn't be surprised to see somebody else step up tomorrow and do the same thing. That's why this team has been so good. We have five great players and they can all get after you at any time. Today it was Brandon."
"I think I am most proud of how much patience I had out there," Hagy said. "I wasn't making too many putts in the beginning, but I was still hitting the ball well so I just kept my head down and kept going. I knew that if I kept hitting good shots I would make some good putts and that's definitely what happened over the last half of my round."
Joël Stalter led the rest of the Golden Bear lineup with a one-under par 69 that has him tied for 20th after the first 18 holes. Stalter also made a nice run at the end of his round with two birdies over his final five holes on the par-four fifth and seventh holes. He also birdied the 12th, while his two bogeys came in back-to-back fashion on both sides of the turn at the par-four 18th and first.
"I had a really good round," Stalter said. "There's not a lot of birdies out there, but I hung tough."
Max Homa is tied for 33rd after an even-par 70 round that featured 16 pars along with one birdie on the par-four 16th and also only a single bogey on the par-three 13th.
"I hit the ball well today and chipped really well also, but I just really didn't take advantage of my opportunities on the greens and hole enough putts," Homa said. "But even par is always good. I'm not displeased with it, but it really had the potential to be something pretty good today."
Michael Kim is tied for 66th following a two-over par round of 72. Kim had bogeys on the 12th and par-four 17th holes before he came up with his lone birdie on the fifth. He gave the stroke back with his third and final bogey on the eighth.
Michael Weaver is tied for 113th after failing to come up with any birdies to offset his four bogeys (14, 16, 2, 3).
Arizona State, ranked No. 38 by Golfstat, is a surprise leader at the end of the first round after the Sun Devils shot a 10-under par 270 that was keyed by the nine-under par 61 posted by first-round leader Jon Rahm. Host Georgia Tech (274, -6), Alabama (275, -5) and Illinois (276, -4) are the other teams ahead of Cal. Oklahoma (278, -2), Texas (279, -1) and Oklahoma State (279, -1) are also currently in the coveted top eight spots that advance to match play.
Cal will continue action Wednesday with the second round of NCAA Championship stroke play. The top-seeded Bears will once again play with second-seeded Alabama and third-seeded UCLA, with the first threesome from the trio of teams having the day's first tee time at 7 a.m. ET/4 a.m. PT. Kim will be in the first group and be followed in 10-minute increments by threesomes including Homa, Hagy, Stalter and Weaver.
"If we play like we have all year, we should be able to put up a pretty good score tomorrow," Desimone said. "We should have better conditions tomorrow and if we just play our games and make good decisions on the golf course then we'll be fine. I like our chances but there's a lot of golf to go and a lot of great teams out there."
The 54-hole stroke-play portion of the event concludes Thursday with the third and final round slated to start at 7 a.m. ET/4 a.m. PT. Thursday's tee times and pairings will be determined by the results of the first 36 holes of play and be announced following the conclusion of Wednesday's second round.
The top eight teams at the conclusion of stroke play will play four quarterfinal matches Friday starting at 10 a.m. ET/7 a.m. PT.
Cal has won 11 of its first 13 tournaments in 2012-13 to set a modern-era NCAA single-season win record previously established by Oklahoma State in 1985-86. Dating back to the beginning of the 2011-12 campaign Cal has won 17 of its last 27 events and finished in the top five in each of them.
NCAA Championship (hosted by Georgia Tech)
Milton, Ga. - Capital City Club, Crabapple Course (par-70, 7,319 yards)
TEAM LEADER BOARD (after 1 of 3 stroke-play days/1 of 3 stroke-play rounds/18 of 54 stroke-play holes)
1. Arizona State (270, -10)
2. Georgia Tech (274, -6)
3. Alabama (275, -5)
4. Illinois (276, -4)
5. Cal (277, -3)
6. Oklahoma (278, -2)
T7. Texas (279, -1)
T7. Oklahoma State (279, -1)
T9. Washington (281, +1)
T9. North Florida (281, +1)
11. Kent State (282, +2)
T12. Texas A&M (285, +5)
T12. LSU (285, +5)
T14. Arkansas (286, +6)
T14. South Carolina (286, +6)
T14. Tennessee (286, +6)
T14. UNLV (286, +6)
T14. Georgia (286, +6)
T19. Saint Mary's (287, +7)
T19. UCF (287, +7)
22. Texas Tech (288, +8)
23. UCLA (289, +9)
24. Ball State (290, +10)
T25. Florida (291, +11)
T25. USC (291, +11)
T27. New Mexico (292, +12)
T27. Auburn (292, +12)
29. Coastal Carolina (293, +13)
30. TCU (294, +14)
PLAYER LEADER BOARD - INDIVIDUAL LEADER (after 1 of 3 stroke-play days/1 of 3 stroke-play rounds/18 of 54 stroke-play holes)
1. Jon Rahm (Arizona State) 61 (-9)
PLAYER LEADER BOARD - CAL INDIVIDUALS (after 1 of 3 stroke-play days/1 of 3 stroke-play rounds/18 of 54 stroke-play holes)
3. Brandon Hagy 66 (-4)
T20.>Joël Stalter 69 (-1)
T33.>Max Homa 70 (E)
T66.>Michael Kim 72 (+2)
T113.>Michael Weaver 74 (+4)
