June 1, 2000
Opelika, AL -
The California men's golf team made a valiant effort in the second round of the NCAA Championships in Opelika, Ala., but failed by just one stroke of qualifying for The Top 15 and the final two rounds of the tournament.
The Bears, who stood at 29th in the 30-team field after a 12-over score of 300 in the first round, rallied to post one of the best team scores of the day in the second round, carding a 4-under score of 284, one of the top team scores of the afternoon.
That moved the Bears into a tie for 17th place with East Tennessee State, only one stroke out of a Top 15 qualifying spot. Cal just couldn't recover from Wednesday's struggles. Only 15 teams advance to the final two rounds on Friday and Saturday. Northwestern and Minnesota tied for 15th and final qualifying spots, despite shooting second round scores of 293 and 290, respectively.
One of the particularly frustrating aspects to Cal's close finish was a two-stroke penalty assessed to freshman James Hahn during the first round when he showed up at the first tee two minutes late. That would have made things much tighter coming down the stretch on Thursday.
Cal's 17th place NCAA finish comes on the heels of a 16th place finish in 1999, a 15th place finish in 1998 and a 6th place finish in 1995.
Cal freshman J.R. Ruda had a spectacular day on Thursday, carding a 4-under-par 68, while senior co-captain Han Lee recovered from an opening round 81 to post a 69 on Thursday.
Oklahoma State leads the tournament at -19, followed by Texas (-18) and Georgia Tech (-14).
Cal Scores - NCAA Championships
California 300 284 584 (+8)
Robert Hamilton 71 69 (-4)
J.R. Ruda 75 68 (-1)
Robert Hamilton 71 74 (+1)
Han Lee 81 69 (+6)
James Hahn 79 75 (+10)
