BERKELEY – California will compete in its first ACC Men's Golf Championship this week at The Club at Olde Stone in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The first of three stroke-play rounds begins Thursday morning with the second and third rounds to follow on Friday and Saturday.  The top eight teams from stroke play will advance to match play, starting with quarterfinals on Sunday morning.
 
The Golden Bears enter the 15-team tournament as the 12th seed and will tee off Thursday alongside No. 10 seed Wake Forest and No. 11 seed Clemson between 7:17-8:01 a.m. PT on hole 10.
 
The semifinals (Sunday) and finals (Monday) of match play will be televised live on ACC Network Extra with Ryan Burr (PxP) and Tony Ziegler (Analyst) providing the call.
 
TOURNAMENT INFO

• Dates: April 24-28
• Format: Stroke Play: 54 holes (18-18-18, Thursday-Friday-Saturday); 5-count-4 | Match Play: Top 8 teams (Sunday-Monday)
• Location: Bowling Green, Kentucky | The Club at Olde Stone
• Course: Par 72 | Yardage: 7,331
• Live Scoring: Stroke Play (Thursday-Friday-Saturday) | Match Play (Sunday-Monday)
• Watch: ACCNX – Semifinals (Sunday) | Final (Monday)

 
TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE

• Thursday, April 24 – Stroke Play, First Round (7:17-8:01 a.m. PT)
• Friday, April 25 – Stroke Play, Second Round (TBD)
• Saturday, April 26 – Stroke Play, Third Round (TBD)
• Sunday, April 27 – Match Play, Quarterfinal | Match Play, Semifinal
• Monday, April 28 – Match Play, Championship

 
OFF THE TEE
1. Daniel Heo
2. Wenliang Xie
3. Ziqin (Eric) Zhou
4. Sihao Cong
5. Kuangyu (Tony) Chen
Alternate: Charlie Berridge
 
TOURNAMENT SEEDING (NATIONAL RANK)
1. Florida State (9)
2. North Carolina (10)
3. Virginia (11)
4. Duke (19)
5. Louisville (24)
6. Georgia Tech (25)
7. SMU (30)
8. Notre Dame (39)
9. Stanford (40)
10. Wake Forest (44)
11. Clemson (56)
12. California (53)
13. NC State (62)
14. Boston College (120)
15. Virginia Tech (193)
 
STEADY ROOKIE
Freshman Ziqin (Eric) Zhou enters the ACC Championship as Cal's top-ranked golfer at 195th nationally and 31st in the conference. The rookie has five top 25 finishes this season, most recently including a tie for 21st at The Goodwin and a season-best ninth-place effort at the Arizona Thunderbirds Intercollegiate. Zhou flashed his talent with a second-round 64 at the Western Intercollegiate – one shot off the tournament's low 18-hole record – last week. He made a splash last fall with a runner-up finish at the prestigious Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship in Gotemba, and then helped lead Team Asia-Pacific to a win over Team Europe at the Bonallack Trophy in early January with three points in four matches.
 
HEO IN FRONT
Junior Daniel Heo will be Cal's No. 1 golfer at the ACC Championship after earning a top-five individual finish at the Western Intercollegiate last week, where he shot 67-70-68 to finish 5-under par. It was a return to form for Heo, who had a pair of top-six finishes in the fall before battling through ups and downs this spring.
 
POSTSEASON EXPERIENCE
Cal will lean on the experience of Heo, graduate Wenliang Xie and redshirt senior Kuangyu (Tony) Chen at this week's conference championship. Heo was a part of the Bears' lineup in both the 2023 Pac-12 Championship and NCAA Morgan Hill Regional as a freshman while Chen took 18th place at the 2022 Pac-12 Championship and competed in the NCAA Championships a year ago. Xie, though in his first season as a Bear, led Seton Hall to the 2024 Big East Championship title with a third-place finish individually.
 
LEADING THE CHARGE
The Bears have laid the building blocks for a successful future in their first season under Alex and Marie Shipman Director of Men's Golf Michael Wilson, who was hired to the position on July 22, 2024. Wilson, a 2007 alumnus and key member of Cal's 2004 NCAA Men's Golf Championship team, returned to Berkeley most recently following two successful seasons at the helm of Colorado State's program (2022-24), having led the Rams to back-to-back NCAA Regional appearances and a 2023 NCAA Championship berth. He's in his eighth season as a Division I head coach.
 
NEW ERA TEED UP FOR CAL GOLF
A transformational gift in support of Cal Golf is setting a new course for the sport and providing a model for philanthropic engagement at a pivotal moment for Cal Athletics. The $23 million gift — the largest endowment gift in Cal Athletics history — provided by an anonymous donor and established campus friend, will fully endow the men's and women's teams and provide Golden Bear golfers with a world class training facility at the Stonebrae Country Club. Read more about the gift at inspire.berkeley.edu.
 
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