The golf team is hot.
After going winless all year thid #13 Cal by 21.
They were even more dominant in the Pac 12 championships, beating second place Cal by 29 and USC by 46.
And they are romping after two rounds in the NCAA regionals in Tucson, leading #24 Oregon by 15 strokes and fifth place Cal by 22.
The big story in this surge has been sophomore Franklin Huang, from Poway, California. Huang, who at -8 leads in event, rarely cracked the starting team before the surge; seven players had earned more starts leading into the Western event. But Huang finished tied for eighth there (-1 for the 54 holes), and followed that with a fifth in the Pac 12s.
If Huang stays on form, Stanford is likely to be the favorite in the NCAA’s, with Texas (leading its regional by 17), ASU (leading its by 15), Oklahoma State (leadng by 12), and Illinois.
And the site for those finals, Eugene Country Club, should be favorable for the guys. It’s a short trip to a familiar Robert Trent Jones design that is replicated on Stanford’s best-in-the-world practice course, and its less familiar to players from the Southwest. The Cardinal will go in with the nation’s best player, Maverick McNeally, a veteran match play stud in #2 David Boote from Wales, and perhaps the nation's best #5, freshman Brandon Wu. He has only one finish this season outside the top 40 and currently is tied for tenth at the regionals. A fifth man who can play like that is lethal.
And our guys should rock next year, too. Only Boote, and ninth man Dominic Francks, graduate.
After going winless all year thid #13 Cal by 21.
They were even more dominant in the Pac 12 championships, beating second place Cal by 29 and USC by 46.
And they are romping after two rounds in the NCAA regionals in Tucson, leading #24 Oregon by 15 strokes and fifth place Cal by 22.
The big story in this surge has been sophomore Franklin Huang, from Poway, California. Huang, who at -8 leads in event, rarely cracked the starting team before the surge; seven players had earned more starts leading into the Western event. But Huang finished tied for eighth there (-1 for the 54 holes), and followed that with a fifth in the Pac 12s.
If Huang stays on form, Stanford is likely to be the favorite in the NCAA’s, with Texas (leading its regional by 17), ASU (leading its by 15), Oklahoma State (leadng by 12), and Illinois.
And the site for those finals, Eugene Country Club, should be favorable for the guys. It’s a short trip to a familiar Robert Trent Jones design that is replicated on Stanford’s best-in-the-world practice course, and its less familiar to players from the Southwest. The Cardinal will go in with the nation’s best player, Maverick McNeally, a veteran match play stud in #2 David Boote from Wales, and perhaps the nation's best #5, freshman Brandon Wu. He has only one finish this season outside the top 40 and currently is tied for tenth at the regionals. A fifth man who can play like that is lethal.
And our guys should rock next year, too. Only Boote, and ninth man Dominic Francks, graduate.
