LIHUE, Hawaii – Tony Chen recorded an eagle on his final hole and jumped into the top 15 individually to highlight the California men's golf team's performance in the first round of the John A. Burns Intercollegiate on Thursday at Ocean Course Hokuala.
 
Chen's strong finish included birdies on holes 1 and 2 before his eagle on 4, resulting in a 3-under-par 69 and a tie for 12th place after 18 holes played. Aaron Du and Sampson Zheng – the respective 2022 and 2023 Burns Intercollegiate individual medalists – also shot under par at 1-under 71. Cal ended Thursday's round in a tie for eighth place at 5-under (283), 10 strokes behind leader Long Beach State (-15), but just five shots off of a three-way tie for second place at 10-under.
 
The Golden Bear lineup – which started on holes 4-6 – started the day strong, led by three consecutive birdies from Ethan Fang on holes 6-8. But a collective six double-bogeys on holes 14-18 halted momentum. A quartet of Bears playing as individuals was paced by Charlie Berridge, who shot even par.
 
TEAM LEADERBOARD

Place	Team	To Par	R1	R2	R3	Total
1	Long Beach State	-15	273
T2	Washington State	-10	278
T2	Grand Canyon	-10	278
T2	Arizona	-10	278
5	Utah	-9	279
T6	New Mexico	-6	282
T6	San Diego State	-6	282
T8	California	-5	283
T8	Texas A&M	-5	283
10	UNLV	-2	286
T11	Little Rock	-1	287
T11	BYU	-1	287
13	Georgia Southern	E	288
T14	Fresno State	+2	290
T14	Hawaii	+2	290
16	San Francisco	+3	291
17	UTEP	+4	292
18	Saint Mary's	+6	294
T19	UC Santa Barbara	+7	295
T19	USC	+10	298

 
CAL ON INDIVIDUAL LEADERBOARD

Place	Name	R1	R2	R3	Total
T12	Tony Chen	69 (-3)
T34	Aaron Du	71 (-1)
T34	Sampson Zheng	71 (-1)
T50	Charlie Berridge (Ind.)	72 (E)
T50	Ethan Fang	72 (E)
T62	Jeewon Park (Ind.)	73 (+1)
T70	Costas Panay (Ind.)	74 (+2)
T70	Eric Lee (Ind.)	74 (+2)
T89	Nathan Wang	75 (+3)

 
UP NEXT
Round two of the John Burns Intercollegiate gets underway with a shotgun start at 9:30 a.m. HST/11:30 a.m. PST on Friday.
 
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