BY TOM LaMARRE
According to the preseason polls, it might be archrivals Cal and Stanford battling it out for men’s college golf supremacy in California and the Pac-12 Conference in the 2018-19 season.
The Golden Bears, coached by Walter Chun, are led by All-American Collin Morikawa, a senior from La Canada Flintridge, who has claimed four titles in his college career, including three last season.
Morikawa also won the 2017 Northeast Amateur and posted a 4-0 record in helping the U.S. claim the 2018 Walker Cup. He was also 2-2 when the U.S. took the Palmer Cup en route to winning Amateurgolf.com’s Player of the Year Award for the second straight time.
In 2016, he won the Sunnehanna Amateur and the Silicon Valley Amateur, a year after capturing the Trans-Mississippi Championship, shooting a tournament-record 64 in each of the last three rounds.
Cal, which won its only NCAA title in 2004, also returns senior KK Limbhasut of Loma Linda, who also has won four times in his college career including twice last season, while also claiming the 2017 Monterey Bay Championship.
The Bears have two more seniors, Sebastian Crampton of Pacific Grove and Ben Doyle of La Jolla, and have added touted freshman James Song of Rancho Santa Fe and UC Santa Barbara transfer Kyle Maspat, a sophomore from San Diego.
On the other side of San Francisco Bay, Stanford Coach Conrad Ray’s squad is led by senior Brandon Wu of Danville, who was second in the NCAA Pacific Regional last year and won the 2017 Porter Cup.
The Cardinal, which claimed the last of its seven NCAA titles in 2007, also has senior Isaiah Salinda of South San Francisco, who recently won the Pacific Coast Amateur Championship, and also captured the 2017 Northern California Amateur Championship, the San Jose City Championship and was a semifinalist at the 2018 U.S. Amatuer Championship.
UCLA, which took home NCAA titles in 1998 and 2008, will rely on sophomore Devon Bling from Ridgecrest, who finished the summer by taking second in the U.S. Amateur and winning the California State Fair Men’s Amateur.
The Bruins, coached by Derek Freeman, also have senior Derek Madey, who this summer won the Sahalee Players Championship after winning the 2017 Oregon Amateur Championship in his hometown of West Linn, Oregon. The team also expects big things from freshman Sean Maruyama of Encino, the 2017 CIF State/SCGA Southern California Regional champion.
USC, which surprisingly has never won an NCAA golf title, is led by senior Justin Suh of San Jose, who claimed five victories for the Trojans and Coach Chris Zambri last season including the Pac-12 title and this summer won the Northeast Amateur.
Pepperdine, which claimed the NCAA title in 1997, returns senior All-American Sahith Theegala of Chino Hills, who has two victories for the Waves and won the 2017 Sahalee Amateur. The Waves, coached by Michael Beard, are expecting an immediate contribution from freshman Joe Highsmith, who won the 2017 Washington State Men’s Amateur.
