SONOMA, Calif. – The California men's golf team will enter the final round of the 2022 Alister Mackenzie Invitational in sole possession of second place and one shot off of the lead following an impressive 36-hole effort on Monday at Sonoma Golf Club.
 
The Golden Bears carded a 36-hole 9-under-par 567 (282-285) during the opening day of the 18th annual Alister Mackenzie Invitational and trails only Harvard (282-284 – 566, -10). Tuesday projects to be a tight race as four teams – Harvard, Cal, Minnesota (-8) and San José State (-8) – are within two strokes of one another atop the leaderboard.
 
After sitting in the middle of the pack halfway through the first round, Cal used a key stretch on the back nine to vault toward the lead. The five Bears in Cal's lineup shot a combined 7-under-par on holes 10-18 during the opening round, highlighted by a four-birdie effort from junior Sampson Zheng and three birdies apiece by redshirt sophomore Ethan Chung and freshman Nathan Wang.
 
Six Bears, including two playing as individuals, are among the top 18 individually with 18 holes remaining. Zheng, who has already logged a pair of top-20 finishes this fall, is a Cal-best 4-under-par (68-72 – 140) and tied for sixth. Zheng notched six birdies and just two bogeys throughout the first two rounds and is only four shots back from clubhouse leader Ian Gilligan (70-66 – 136, -8) of Long Beach State heading into Tuesday.
 
Wang used another strong back-nine effort in the second round – he shot 3-under over the nine holes – to jump into a tie for eighth place overall. After a first-round 74, junior Jeewon Park, who is playing as an individual, carded Cal's lowest score of the day with a 67 in round two and is tied with Wang for eighth. Four other Bears – Simon Kwon (69, first round), Chung (71, first round), Tony Chen (71, second round) and Aaron Du (71, second round) – posted at least one round under par.
 
The Bears, who are playing tournament host, and the eight other teams in the field waited out the morning fog for a brief time shortly after the start of the first round and later battled through a warm afternoon that reached the mid-80s.
 
Cal has won or shared the team title 11 times in the 17 previous years the tournament has been played dating back to 2002, but it has not won since 2017.
 

Place	Name	Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Total
T6	Sampson Zheng	68 (-4)	72 (E)		140 (-4)
T8	Nathan Wang	70 (-2)	71 (-1)		141 (-3)
T8	Jeewon Park (i)	74 (+2)	67 (-5)		141 (-3)
12	Simon Kwon (i)	69 (-3)	73 (+1)		142 (-2)
T13	Ethan Chung	71 (-1)	72 (E)		143 (-1)
T18	Tony Chen	73 (+1)	71 (-1)		144 (E)
T33	Aaron Du	76 (+4)	71 (-1)		148 (+3)
T36	Daniel Heo (i)	75 (+3)	73 (+1)		148 (+4)
51	Costas Panay (i)	77 (+5)	74 (+2)		141 (+7)

 
UP NEXT
Round three of the Alister Mackenzie Invitational will begin at 8 a.m. PT Tuesday with teams teeing off from holes 1 and 10 in nine-minute intervals. The Cal lineup will tee off on the first hole between 8:45-9:21 a.m. alongside Harvard (-10) and Minnesota (-8), while the four Bears playing as individuals will start between 8:09-8:36 a.m. on hole 10. Live scoring will be available on GolfStat.com.

• Aaron Du – 8:45 a.m., hole 1
• Tony Chen – 8:54 a.m., hole 1
• Ethan Chung – 9:03 a.m., hole 1
• Nathan Wang – 9:12 a.m., hole 1
• Sampson Zheng – 9:21 a.m., hole 1
• Costas Panay (i) – 8:09 a.m., hole 10
• Daniel Heo (i) – 8:27 a.m., hole 10
• Simon Kwon (i) – 8:36 a.m., hole 10
• Jeewon Park (i) – 8:36 a.m., hole 10

 
STAY POSTED
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