California came into the NCAA men’s golf championships as the gold standard in the sport.
On Thursday, the Bears, who set the NCAA’s modern record with 11 wins in 13 tournaments this year, showed why by taking both the individual title and the top seed for the match-play portion of the tournament on the Capital City Club’s Crabapple Course.
Cal’s Max Homa shot a 4-under 66 to finish at 9 under for the first NCAA singles championship in school history. It was Homa’s second victory and the 10th individual title for the Bears this year. He finished three strokes ahead of a group of players. With Homa pacing the team, the Bears finished 16 under, six strokes ahead of Georgia Tech.
“What a great day for Max, and what a great day for the Golden Bears,” coach Steve Desimone said. “Now, we’ve got to go play tomorrow.”
Cal will take on fellow Pac-12 member Arizona State, the eighth seed, in the first round Friday. The winners will advance to Saturday’s second round and the championship match will be Sunday.
Tech, which began the day as the leader at 12 under, couldn’t keep up with Cal on the first nine and finished at 10 under. The Yellow Jackets clinched the second seed and will play UNLV (2 over), one of three teams to survive a four-team playoff for the final spots, in its match.
“We didn’t start well, and they did,” Tech coach Bruce Heppler said of Cal. “They’ve got a match tomorrow and so do we, and that’s all you can ask for.”
Other matchups are No. 3 Alabama (7 under) vs. No. 6 New Mexico (2 over) and No. 4 Texas (7 under), the defending national champ, vs. No. 5 Illinois (5 under). Texas A&M (2 over) failed to advance in the playoff after posting two bogeys and three pars on its playoff hole.
Homa got off to a blistering start,with birdies on three of his first five holes. He added a birdie at 12 and didn’t record a bogey in what he said was one of the best rounds of his career. He said he didn’t look at a scoreboard or ask for a score until he was standing in the fairway on No. 18.
He had one challenger down the stretch: teammate Brandon Hagy, who trailed by a stroke with four holes to play. But he fell away with a double-bogey after a poor chip on No. 15, a 220-yard par 3.
Around the same time, Homa drilled his approach shot on No. 16 to 10 feet. He walked off with a par. He followed with another fairway-to-green path on No. 17 and two more crisp shots on 18. After he rolled in the clinching par putt to finish his round, Homa barely reacted. He put the ball in his pocket, took off his hat and shook the hands of his playing partners.
“The job’s not done,” he said. “This is part one.”
Still, Homa, a senior, said he is as excited as he can be knowing that there is still potentially a lot of golf to play.
“This is the biggest accomplishment of my life, not even close,” he said.
Both of the Yellow Jackets’ best hopes for their fourth individual NCAA title got off to poor starts.
Ollie Schniederjans, who started the day 5 under, bogeyed his first hole. He finished the turn at par, three behind Homa and facing the prospect of trying to make up the difference on the tougher back nine. He played them in par.
“I played well the whole tournament and am looking forward to winning some matches,” Schniederjans said.
Anders Albertson started the day 4 under and three behind second-round leader John Rahm of Arizona State. Playing in the same group as Homa, Albertson bogeyed No. 3 after shanking a shot and added another bogey at No. 4 to fall to 2 under. He finished the stroke play 1 under.
Now the tournament begins anew. But Desimone, for a second, preferred to talk about the context of the past.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next three days. Anybody can get hot, and anybody can cool off,” Desimone said. “But what I do know is this is one of the greatest teams to play college golf.”
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