Alexander Chin of Pleasanton and Jalen Griffin of San Francisco rallied in the final round to capture the 55th Northern California Golf Association Four-Ball Championship by four strokes over brothers Jimmy and Johnny Castles of Cupertino at Spyglass Hill Golf Club in Pebble Beach.
Chin, the 2020 NCGA Player of the Year, and Griffin, who from the University of San Francisco, carded a score of 67-68-63—198, 18-under-par, while the Castles were second at 68-64-70—202, followed by Griffin Long of Davis and Matthew Sutherland of Carmichael at 67-68-68—203, Lewis Simon of Torrance and Keith Okasaki of Torrance at 67-65-72—204, and Reid Scarff and AJ Hahn of Stockton at 66-69-71—206.
The tournament was contested over 54 holes of four-ball stroke play, and the 63 recorded by Chin and Griffin in the final round was two strokes off the tournament record of 61 set by winners Ethan Farnham and Ethan Ashbrook last year.
“It was a pretty electric weekend,” said Griffin who is an assistant golf coach at USF. “The first day we were ham-and-egging it. The second day we had no bogeys and today was solid. Spyglass can eat you up real quick.”
Added Chin, a 23-year-old graduate student who still is playing for the Dons: “We play off of each other well. Keep the ball in play. If the first player is in the middle of the green, the second person can play aggressively.”
Jeff Hamm of Danville and Ian Dahl of Carmel finished sixth at 70-72-65—207, followed by Matt Chon of San Francisco and Nick Moore of Seaside at 66-72-70—208, while Jake Aberle Aberle of Lodi and Jake Bettencourt of Clovis totaled 68-74-67—209 to tie for eighth with Brandon Knight of Pleasanton and Curtis Dasilva of Monterey at 69-71-69—209, and Marc Engellenner of Rocklin and Domingo Jojola of San Francisco at 69-70-70—209.
Engellener and Jojola won the 2021 Trans Mississippi Four-Ball Championship, and Jojola claimed the 95th Alameda Commuters Tournament by five strokes over Engellenner and Eric Yun of Menlo Park earlier this month.
The NCGA Four-Ball Championship has been played every years since 1967 at Spyglass Hill, except for 2020, when it was cancelled because of the Coronavirus pandemic.
For complete results, visit https://ncga.bluegolf.com/bluegolf/ncga22/event/ncga22105/contest/1/leaderboard.htm
