With Justin Suh, a junior from San Jose, Calif., setting a
sizzling pace on his way to a four-shot victory in the individual chase,
Southern California, No. 19 in the latest Golfstat
rankings, held off a charge by No. 43 Colorado to take the team title in
the Pac-12 Championship, which concluded Wednesday at Rolling HIills Country
Club on Rolling Hills Estates, Calif.
There’s a lot going on at a Pac-12 Championship, including a
format that really tests teams’ depth with five scores counting from six-man
teams as opposed to the usual four scores counting from five players. And even
though Rolling Hills isn’t far from the Los Angeles-based schools like Southern
Cal and UCLA, it has been completely redone and was pretty much a blank canvas
until teams got on the course for practice rounds.
None of which seemed to concern the talented Suh, who
started off in a Monday double-round with a 3-under-par 68 over the 7,155-yard,
par-71 Rolling Hills layout followed by a scintillating 7-under 64. Suh, the
No. 6 player in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), kept piling it on with a
6-under 65 in Tuesday’s third round before finally cooling off with an even-par
71 in Wednesday’s final round for a 16-under 208 total.
The Trojans opened with an 8-under 347 and, with Kaito Onishi,
a freshman from Bradenton, Fla. matching Suh’s 64, erupted for a 15-under 340 in
the afternoon round of the opening day to take control of the team race. They
finished it off with a pair of 4-under 351 rounds that enabled them to finish
with a 31-under 1,389 total. It was Southern Cal’s 20th Pac-12 team
title, but its first since 2011.
Colorado was also under par in each round, opening with a
7-under 348, adding a 4-under 351 Monday afternoon and an 8-under 347 in
Tuesday’s third round before finishing up with another 8-under 347 for a
27-under 1,393 total. The runnerup finish was the best Colorado has posted in a
Pac-12 Championship, but the Buffs could never quite catch up to Southern Cal.
No. 21 Arizona State, which came on strong after an opening
round of 8-over 363, took third at 23-under 1,397, No. 18 Stanford was fourth
at 19-under 1,401 and No. 9 California, the highest-ranked Pac-12 team in the Golfstat rankings, finished fifth at
16-under 1,404.
Defending champion Oregon, ranked 30th, finished
11th of 12 teams at 15-over 1,435. The Ducks have played on the
final day of the Division I season in each of the last two years, winning the
national championship on their home track at Eugene Country Club two years ago
and falling to Oklahoma in the Final Match last spring at Rich Harvest Farms.
Of course, Suh didn’t bring the team title home all by
himself. He had plenty of support from his youthful teammates, led by Onishi
and Cheng Jin, a sophomore from China, both of whom landed in the group
tied for 13th at 4-under 280.
Onishi struggled in the opening round with a 4-over 75 before
matching Suh with a remarkable 7-under 64 of his own in Monday afternoon’s second
round. Jin opened with a 3-under 68 and was steady the rest of the way,
matching par in the second and third rounds before finishing up with a 1-under
70.
Ryan Slater, a redshirt sophomore from Gilroy, Calif., also
posted a top-20 finish as he ended up in the group tied for 19th at
2-under 282. Slater was particularly tough in the double-round on the first day
of the tournament, posting a pair of 2-under 69s.
Issei Tanabe, a freshman from Huntingdon Beach, Calif.,
picked up the team with a final-round 67 that was the Trojans’ best score of
the day and had a lot to do with Southern Cal holding off Colorado.
Kyle Suppa, a sophomore from Honolulu, Hawaii, rounded out
the Southern Cal lineup, finishing with the group tied for 58th at
8-over 292. But Suppa’s pair of opening-day 1-over 72s were both crucial counters.
The depth of individual talent in the Pac-12 was on display
among the top finishers in the individual standings behind Suh.
Colorado was led by two of the four players who finished
tied for second, four shots behind Suh at 12-under 272. Ross Macdonald, a
sophomore from Castle Rock, Colo., had four rounds in the 60s, a pair of 2-under
69s in the opening-day double-round and a pair of 4-under 67s in the final two
rounds that sparked the late surge by the Buffaloes. Yannik Paul, a senior
from Germany, was also never out of the 60s, carding rounds of 68 and 69 in the
opening-day double-round, adding another 68 in Tuesday’s third round and
matching Macdonald’s final-round 67.
Rounding out the foursome at 12-under 272 were Washington’s
Carl Yuan, a junior from Orlando, Fla., and Arizona’s George Cunningham, a
senior from Tucson, Ariz. Yuan started and finished with rounds of 4-under 67
while Cunningham followed up a pair of 67s in the opening-day double-round with
a pair of 69s in third and fourth rounds.
Arizona State’s Koichiro Ishika, a freshman from Japan, made
quite a splash in his Pac-12 Championship debut, finishing alone in sixth place
at 11-under 273 with four rounds in the 60s, highlighted by a 5-under 66 in
Tuesday’s third round.
California’s Collin Morikawa, a junior from La Canada Flintridge, Calif. and
the No. 2 player in the WAGR, is a very familiar figure at the Pac-12 Championship. And Morikawa, one of three U.S. players who went
4-0 in 19-7 victory over Great Britain & Ireland in the Walker Cup Match at
Los Angeles Country Club last summer, finished with a flourish, a 5-under 66
that left him alone in seventh at 10-under 274.
If he gets there, and it’s likely he will, Morikawa will be one
of the top contenders for an NCAA individual title at Karsten Creek Golf Club.
Stanford’s Jeffery Swegle, a senior from West Des Moines,
Iowa, and Washington State’s Zach Anderson, a senior from Canada, finished tied
for eighth at 9-under 275.
Swegle actually matched Suh’s blazing opening day with
rounds of 67 and 65 that gave him a share of the 36-hole lead with Suh at
10-under 132. He cooled off with a 3-over 74 in the third round before
finishing up with a 2-under 69. Anderson also had a 6-under 65 on his ledger in
the third round. He finished up with a 1-under 70.
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