This feature originally appeared in the 2023 Fall edition of the Cal Sports Quarterly. The Cal Athletics flagship magazine features long-form sports journalism at its finest and provides in-depth coverage of the scholar-athlete experience in Berkeley. Printed copies are mailed four times a year to Bear Backers who give annually at the Bear Club level (currently $600 or more). For more information on how you can receive a printed version of the Cal Sports Quarterly at home, send an email to CalAthleticsFund@berkeley.edu or call (510) 642-2427.
 
 
Eating a home-cooked meal made by Sampson Zheng isn't the stereotypical college dining experience.
 
Sit down at Zheng's table and you'll not just enjoy a dish varying from an array of cuisines – Japanese and Chinese to Italian and even Texas-style barbecue – but you'll be treated to a level of hospitality and community that can only be shared over food.
 
Just ask Zheng's California men's golf teammates, who aren't shy about offering to taste the senior's experimentations in the kitchen.
 
"Sammy's cooking has been an integral part of bringing our team together," said fellow senior golfer and roommate Aaron Du, whose favorite Zheng-made dish is Wagyu beef with Sukiyaki sauce. "It's during those meals when you're reminded that we're more like a family rather than just teammates."
 
Zheng's love of cooking has been an anchor of team chemistry for a squad that returned to NCAA postseason play last spring for the first time since 2019 and enters the 2023-24 season with lofty expectations. The same passion has also helped Zheng find balance in his academics, social life and a standout golf career that saw him earn All-America honors last season and projects toward future professional opportunities.
 
"It's my way of relaxing," Zheng said. "When I'm cooking, I can disconnect from golf or my coursework. It's even more special when I'm able to bring people together over food."
 
Zheng, who was born to Chinese parents in Japan, started cooking for himself around the age of 16. He became independent at a young age after moving to Bradenton, Florida, at age 11 to attend IMG Academy – he later moved to Orlando to enroll at The First Academy – and pursue his golf ambitions. Aside from a cousin who lived locally and plenty of good friends met through golf and school, Zheng was mostly on his own, particularly when it came to food. His aunt, Yuzhong Han,  was a chef and had taught him bits and pieces of the craft, and his father, Huimin, showed him how to slice fish and make sushi, but it was his independence as a youth that led him to find joy in experimentation and cooking for others.
 
"I had a hard time finding what I enjoyed eating in Japan while living in Florida," Zheng recalled. "It was a situation where I either cooked what I wanted to eat, or I didn't get it."
 
Zheng's most recent experiment has been with pasta - finding the right pairing of sauce and cheese to go along with it. The concoction seems simple at first, though the end result is rarely mastered without practice and failure along the way, much like golf. Zheng views the two pieces of his life through a similar, creative lens.
 
"Golf and cooking both resemble art," Zheng said. "It's all about the creativity. Around the greens, there are so many ways to hit the same shot and get the result you want. I treat cooking the same way in that there's not one true way of doing it. Both really boil down to finding a self-satisfaction within the craft."
 
Zheng arrived at Cal in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and was only able to play the spring portion of his freshman season in 2020-21. Being thrust into the collegiate game without much of a runway presented challenges, but his progression as a golfer has been evident. He played well down the stretch of his sophomore season on the way to earning All-Pac-12 honorable mention before averaging 69.83 strokes per round as a junior in 2022-23 – nearly four fewer strokes than his average as a freshman – and ended the season ranked 15th nationally by Golfstat while receiving an All-America nod.
 
After a busy summer that included winning the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship alongside Du, hitting a hole-in-one at the prestigious Arnold Palmer Cup and participating in his first U.S. Amateur Championship, Zheng is back at Cal for one final collegiate season that is full of expectations, both individually and as a team. He entered the current 2023-24 season with a No. 18 preseason ranking from PGA TOUR University and will lead a Cal team that reloaded with 10 of 11 golfers from last season's roster while adding the nation's No. 3-ranked signing class. Zheng has already secured a top-three individual finish at the Marquette Intercollegiate and a match-play victory at the Big Match in the first month of competition.
 
"Sampson loves the phrase 'onward and upward,' and I find myself using it when talking to recruits and our younger golfers," Alex and Marie Shipman Director of Men's Golf Walter Chun said. "He always maintains such a mature perspective and doesn't let things fester. He's really grown up in Berkeley."
 
Zheng has debated how a different freshman-year experience might've impacted his development, but finds quiet confidence in knowing how much room he has to improve his game after an impressive junior season. With professional pursuits on the horizon, Zheng knows his senior year will be pressure-filled and competitive but is ready for the challenge.
 
"I can play better, and that's an amazing feeling," Zheng said. "I didn't do anything extraordinarily different last year; it's not like I didn't work hard, but it was about finding balance in my game and understanding what makes me a good golfer."
 
Zheng's off-the-course interests, particularly cooking, have been instrumental in finding that balance both as a golfer and young adult.
 
Other than when the Bears are on the road playing in tournaments, Zheng cooks around five times a week and usually shares his dishes with Du and Tony Chen, a redshirt junior golfer and fellow roommate, as well as other members of the men's and women's golf teams. The ability to put his full attention on cooking enables him to leave a bad golf performance in the rearview mirror and keep perspective.
 
"Sampson's approach – whether in golf or cooking – is what makes him so good at what he does," Du said. "He doesn't omit details; that's not in his nature. When we play a practice round, he's bringing insight to the course that others might have ignored in their preparation. When it comes to cooking, he has a reason for every step that's taken. He puts in the hard work and it's clearly paying off."

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