Justin Suh of USC captured the individual title and led the Trojans to victory in the St. Mary’s Invitational at Poppy Hills Golf Course in Pebble Beach.
Suh, a junior from San Jose, claimed his second victory of the season and third of his USC career with a score of 67-66-67—200, 13-under-par, while Trojan teammate Kaito Onishi shot 73-63-69—205 to tie for second with Hayden Shieh of Santa Clara, who totaled 70-68-67—205, and Patrick Fishburn of Brigham Young, who finished at 67-71-67—205.
“Poppy Hills felt like I was back at home,” said Suh, who won the Trinity Forest Invitational in September and is No. 1 in the Golfweek/Sagarin Men’s National College Rankings.
“With the help of Coach (Chris) Zambri and (Associate Head Coach) Justin Silverstein, we were able to commit to each shot throughout the tournament with confidence. … I’m glad to have got the win with these guys.”
Brandon Wu of Stanford was fifth at 70-67-69—206, while PJ Samiere of San Diego State shot 70-69-68—207 to tie for sixth with Kyle Suppa of USC, who wound up at 75-68-64—207.
Matt Moomjian of UC Santa Barbara totaled 71-70-67—208 to tie for eighth with Soren Lind of San Francisco (69-71-68—208), Franklin Huang of Stanford (70-69-69—208), Rhett Rasmussen of Brigham Young (71-69-68—208), Brad Reeves of Arizona (67-70-71—208) and Parathakorn Suyasri of Colorado State (67-73-68—208).
Ash Hakim led host St. Mary’s in a tie for 14th at 70-68-71—209, while Justin Avery of Fresno State tied for 20th at 73-67-72—212, and David Kim of UC Irvine tied for 48th at 71-73-74—218.
Rounding out the scoring for team champion USC were Sam Kim in a tie for 43rd at 77-71-69—217, Ryan Slater in a tie for 48th at 77-73-68—218, and Issei Tanabe in a tie for 68th at 72-71-81—224.
USC won for the first time this season with a score of 287-268-269—824, 28-under, followed by Stanford at 283-273-274—830, Colorado State at 283-286-271—840, Brigham Young at 290-280-273—843 and San Francisco at 281-287-279—847.
“This was a total team effort,” said Zambri, who is in his 12th season as coach of the Trojans. “Justin has been so strong for us this year, but we had others step up this week. Every guy on our team came up big. It’s a great way to head into the break.”
St. Mary’s was sixth at 285-280-286—851, followed by San Diego State at 289-282-281—852, Nevada Reno at 293-281-284—858, Santa Clara at 293-292-274—859 and Toledo at 300-276-284—860.
Fresno State finished 13th at 308-277-292—877, UC Santa Barbara was 14th at 301-292-287—880 and UC Irvine tied for 15th at 297-289-295—881.
