Stanford continues spring roll by taking Pac-12 team title; Cal's Morikawa the individual champion

   A lot of my energy on this blog in the spring is devoted more toward the eastern half of the country, particularly places where I think I can find players who played in the PIAA or Inter-Ac League championships in the last few years, when it comes to college golf.

   When I peeked in to The Goodwin, the event that Stanford hosts each spring at the Stanford Golf Course each spring, I was a little surprised to see the host Cardinal ranked 31^st.

   Well, Stanford won the team title by 18 shots over Pac-12 rival Southern California in The Goodwin and then came back a couple of weeks later to take the team crown in the Western Intercollegiate at Pasatiempo Golf Club, an Alister MacKenzie gem in Santa Cruz, Calif.

   Somehow that only got Stanford up to No. 17 in the Golfstat rankings heading into this week’s Pac-12 Championship at Eugene Country Club in Eugene, Ore.

   Well, the Cardinal won that, too, by seven shots with a 7-under-par 1,413 total over the 7,044-yard, par-71 Eugene Country Club layout. And they’re still ranked 17^th. What are you going to do? Rankings are great for trying to make relative comparisons during the season, but Stanford let its performance speak for itself in the last month or so.

   The Pac-12 Championship really tests a team’s depth as five scores are counted from six starters, unlike the five-score-four format employed at most tournaments.

   Stanford had taken the lead in the team standings following Monday’s double-round as the Cardinal opened with a 4-over 359 before adding a solid 9-under 346 in the afternoon.

   But No. 11 California, which started the week ranked 12^th and moved up one in the aftermath of the Pac-12 Championship, went really low in Tuesday’s third round, behind a sparkling 7-under 64 by eventual individual champion Collin Morikawa, a senior from La Canada Flintridge, Calif., to take a three-shot lead over UCLA with Stanford another shot back in third heading into the final round.

   In Wednesday’s final round with a change in weather that ushered in an April chill and some wind, Stanford posted a bookend 4-over 359 to its opening round while UCLA fell back with a 12-over 367 to finish second at even-par 1,420 and Cal struggled to a 16-over 371 to end up a shot behind the Bruins in third place at 1-over 1,421.

   UCLA began the week ranked 32^nd and moved up to 29^th with its strong showing in Eugene.

It was another 22 shots back to the Pac-12’s highest-ranked team, No. 2 Arizona State, which finished fourth at 23-over 1,443 after a final round of 9-over 264.

   No. 40 Oregon, back a spot from No. 39, shared fifth place with No. 70 Utah at 31-over 1,451 on the same course where the Ducks, quite dramatically, claimed a national championship three years ago. Oregon closed with a 22-over 377 while the Utes finished up with a 17-over 372.

   Defending champion Southern California, at No. 5 up a spot from No. 6 at the beginning of the week, was another shot behind Oregon and Utah in seventh place at 32-over 1,452 as the Trojans struggled to a final round of 24-over 379.

   Stanford was led by its seniors, Isaiah Salinda of South San Francisco, Calif. and No. 30 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), and Brandon Wu of Scarsdale, N.Y. and No. 13 in the WAGR.

   Salinda, a semifinalist in last summer’s U.S. Amateur at the Pebble Beach Golf Links, finished fifth in the individual standings at 3-under 281 after a final round of 1-under 70. After opening with a 5-over 76, Salinda immediately righted the ship Monday afternoon with a sparkling 5-under 66. He added a 2-under 69 in Tuesday’s third round.

   Wu finished two shots behind Salinda in a three-way tie for seventh place at 1-under 283 that included teammate Daulet Tuleubayev, a freshman from Kazakhstan.

   Wu rattled off three straight 1-under 70s before closing with a 2-over 73. Tuleubayev contributed to Stanford’s strong start with a 4-under 67 and a 1-under 70 in Monday’s double-round. His 3-over 74 in the third round was a throw-out, but he closed with a 1-over 72 in Wednesday’s final round.

   David Snyder, a junior from McAllen, Texas, gave Stanford a fourth finisher in the top 10 as he joined the group tied for 10^th place at even-par 284. Snyder contributed a 3-under 68 to Stanford’s solid third round and closed with an even-par 71.

   You can find a PIAA champion on the Stanford roster, too, and sophomore Nate Menon, the 2015 state champion in Class AA as a junior at Wyomissing, finished in the group tied for 23^rd at 6-over 290. After struggling to an opening-round 79, Menon hit his stride, firing a 4-under 67 Monday afternoon, matching par with a 71 Tuesday and finishing up with a 2-over 73.

   It will be interesting to see if that effort was good enough to have Menon included in Stanford’s five in the NCAA regionals.

   Rounding out the six-man Stanford lineup for the Pac-12 Championship was Henry Shimp, a junior from Charlotte, N.C. who finished among the group tied for 37^th at 10-over 294. In between bookend 75s, Shimp carded a 2-over 73 in Monday afternoon’s second round and matched par in Tuesday’s third round with a 71.

   Morikawa, No. 4 in the WAGR, added one more entry to his impressive amateur resume as he rolled to a four-shot victory for the individual title. He posted rounds of 68 and 70 in Monday’s double-round before going off for that third round of 7-under 64 to take control of the individual chase. Morikawa closed with a 1-under 70 for a 12-under 272 total.

   Morikawa was one of three U.S. players to post a 4-0 record when the home team rolled to a 19-7 victory over Great Britain & Ireland in the Walker Cup Match at Los Angeles Country Club in the summer of 2017.

   Utah’s Kyler Dunkle, a senior from Larkspur, Colo., also fired a 7-under 64 in Monday afternoon’s second round after opening with a 1-under 70 and had a share of the lead at 8-under 134. He fell a shot behind Morikawa after a 2-under 69 in Tuesday’s third round. He fell back with a 2-over 73 in the final round, but still held onto second place at 8-under 276.

   UCLA’s Cole Madey, a senior playing pretty close to his West Linn, Ore. home, was another three shots behind Dunkle in third place at 5-under 279. Madey was in the hunt the whole way, adding a pair of 2-under 69s to his opening-round 67 before closing with a 3-over 74.

   It looked like defending champion Justin Suh, a Southern Cal senior from San Jose, Calif. and No. 2 in the WAGR, had every intention of repeating when he fired rounds of 69 and 65 in Monday’s double-round to share the lead with Utah’s Dunkle. But Suh matched par in Tuesday’s third round with a 71 before closing with a 4-over 75 to finish alone in fourth, a shot behind Madey at 4-under 280.

   In sixth place, a shot behind Stanford’s Salinda at 2-under 282, was the man who beat Salinda in that U.S. Amateur semifinal at Pebble Beach last summer, UCLA’s Devon Bling, a sophomore from Ridgecrest, Calif. Bling, who went on to fall to Viktor Hovland of Oklahoma State and Norway, in the U.S. Amateur final, carded a 4-under 67 in Tuesday’s third round before finishing up with a 1-over 72.

   Bling made the most out of the ticket to the Masters that that runnerup finish in the U.S. Amateur earned him as he made the cut on the number and finished 55^th at 3-over 291. Not many guys get to tune up for their conference championship with four rounds at Augusta National.

   Eddy Lai, a sophomore from San Jose, Calif., gave UCLA three finishers inside the top seven as he joined Stanford’s Wu and Tuleubayev in the tie for seventh at 1-under 283. Lai contributed a 4-under 67 to the Bruins’ strong 7-under third round before finishing up with a 3-over 74.