Golden Year for California Golfers

California golfers have had a big 2021, particularly on the PGA Tour, as four of them have spent most of the season in the top 10 of the World Golf Rankings.

Collin Morikawa of La Canada Flintridge is ranked No. 2 behind top-ranked Spaniard Jon Rahm, while Patrick Cantlay of Los Alamitos is No. 4, Xander Schauffele of La Jolla is No. 5 and Bryson DeChambeau of Clovis is No. 7.

Here is a rundown of what these four Californians accomplished this year:

The 26-year-old Morikawa, who graduated from Cal in 2019, finished in the top 10 eight times and in the top 25 in a total of 11 events, highlighted by his twostroke victory over Jordan Spieth in the 149th Open Championship at Royal St. George’s Golf Club in Kent, England. It was Morikawa’s second major victory, as he also won the 2020 PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco. In addition, Morikawa won the 2021 Workday Championship at The Concession and lost out in a playoff to Cantlay at The Memorial on his way to finishing 26th in the FedEx Cup standings. Morikawa also closed with a

Collin Morikawa

PHOTO: MICHAEL WEINSTEIN

Xander Schauffele

63 in the Olympic Games at Kasumigaseki Country Club outside Tokyo and lost out to C.T. Pan of Taiwan in a seven-man playoff to determine the winner of the Bronze Medal. Morikawa posted a 3-0-1 record in the Ryder Cup, including a tie with Viktor Hovland of Norway in singles, which provided the United States with the half point that clinched the victory to regain the Cup for the United States.

Patrick Cantlay, 29, who earned the 2009 Haskins Award after winning four times as a freshman at UCLA, capped a brilliant 202021 season by winning the final two events of the playoffs—the BMW Championship in a playoff over DeChambeau and the Tour Championship by one stroke over Rahm—to capture the FedEx Cup. Cantlay also won the 2020 Zozo Championship at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks and the 2021 Memorial in a playoff over Morikawa and was selected PGA Tour Player of the Year. He claimed four victories while finishing in the top 10 a total of seven times and

PHOTO: MICHAEL WEINSTEIN

in the top 25 on 17 occasions during the 2020-21 wraparound season. Cantlay also had a 3-0-1 record to help the United States regain the Ryder Cup, including a victory over Shane Lowry of Ireland in singles.

Xander Schauffele, 27, who played at San Diego State, didn’t add to his total of four PGA Tour titles this year, but he did win one of the biggest tournaments in the world when he claimed the Gold Medal in the Olympic Games by one stroke over Rory Sabbatini of Slovakia at Kasumigaseki Country Club outside Tokyo. Schauffele posted a score of 68-63-68-67—266, getting up-anddown for a par from a greenside bunker on the final hole. Even though he didn’t win on the PGA Tour during the 2020-21 season, Schauffele finished second three times among his eight top-10 finishes and recorded 16 top-25 results while finishing fifth in the FedEx Cup standings. Schauffele obviously is comfortable on the big stage, because in addition to the Olympic Games he had victories in the 2017 Tour Championship, the 2019 WGC-HSBC Champions and the 2019 Sentry Tournament of Champions. He lost his title defenses in the WGC-HSBC Champions and the Sony Tournament of Champions in playoffs to Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas respectively.

Phil Mickelson

Twenty-eight year-old Bryson DeChambeau has changed his body gaining 25 pounds of muscle. He seems to be changing the game as well with his analytical approach to hitting the golf ball farther and farther. In 2015 DeChambeau, who played his college golf at SMU, became the fifth player to win the NCAA Championship and the U.S. Amateur Championship in the same year. The beefed-up DeChambeau is now a completely different player

PHOTO: MICHAEL WEINSTEIN than he was just a few years ago. He captured his first major title by a whopping six strokes over Matthew Wolff of Agoura Hills in the 2020 U.S. Open at Winged Foot also winning the 2021 Arnold Palmer Invitational during the 2020-21 season to give him eight victories on the PGA Tour. He had nine finishes in the top 10, including second in the BMW Championship and fifth in the Tour Championship to wind up seventh in the FedEx Cup standings. In addition, DeChambeau went 2-0-1, including a singles victory over Spain’s Sergio Garcia, to help the U.S. regain the Ryder Cup. A few days after that, DeChambeau competed in the Professional Long Drivers Association World Championships at Mesquite, Nev., and finished a respectable seventh, a mere six yards short of making the final round, against players who do this for a living. He hit five drives of 400 yards or more during the competition.

And lest we forget 51-year Phil Mickelson who became the oldest winner of a major championship when he beat Brooks Koepka and Louis Oosthuizen of South Africa to win the 2021 PGA Championship at Kiawah Island Golf Resort in South Carolina. That gave Lefty 45 PGA Tour victories, including six major titles, but he remains a U.S. Open short of the Career Grand Slam. And that wasn’t all as Mickelson played in four PGA Champions Tour

Bryson DeChambeau

events winning three times: the Charles Schwab Series at Ozarks National, the Dominion Energy Classic in 2020 and the Constellation Furyk and Friends. Mickelson also was a vice captain for Steve Stricker as the United States regained the Ryder Cup.

Joseph Bramlett of Saratoga and Stanford University captured the Korn Ferry Tour Championship and was one of 25 players who earned their PGA Tour playing cards for this season. Others in the Final 25 included J.J. Spaun of Los Angeles and San Diego State, Sahith Theegala of Chino Hills and Pepperdine, John Huh of Los Angeles and Cal State Northridge, Patrick Rodgers of Avon, Ind., and Stanford, and Kurt Kitayama of Chico and UNLV.

There also were several players from California who performed well on the LPGA Tour:

Danielle Kang of Westlake Village and Pepperdine didn’t play quite as well this year as she did in 2020, when she won the LPGA Drive On Championship and the Marathon Classic on consecutive weeks in August. However, Kang finished in the top 10 on seven occasions and in the top 20 a total of 10 times, including a playoff loss to top-ranked Nelly Korda in the Diamond Resorts Tournament of Champions. Kang, who recently fell out of the top 10 in the Rolex Women’s Golf Rankings for the first time in more than a year, also tied for 20th in the Olympic Games in Japan.

Patty Tavatanakit of Thailand, a two-time All-American at UCLA, claimed her first victory

PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE LPGA

Danielle Kang

PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE LPGA

Ryann O’Toole

on the LPGA Tour in the ANA Inspiration on the Dinah Shore Tournament Course at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage last April after winning three times on the Symetra Tour in 2019. The 22-year-old Tavatanakit has finished in the top 10 eight times and in the top 25 on 11 occasions this year, in addition to tying for 23rd in the Olympic Games. Tavatanakit is third in the Race to the CME Globe.

Ryann O’Toole of San Clemente and UCLA toiled on the LPGA Tour and lower tours for 12 years without too much success overall, although she did win three times on the Futures Tour in 2010 and 2011. The 34-year-old O’Toole was on the verge of quitting the game several times, including recently, before she broke through to win the Trust Golf Women’s Scottish Open by three strokes over Lydia Ko of New Zealand and Atthaya Thitikul of Thailand in August. Her first LPGA Tour victory came in her 228th start on the circuit.

Lizette Salas of Azusa and USC is another player who considered retirement, but recently she opened up about her bouts with depression. She’s since had a resurgent season. The 32-year-old Salas, whose only LPGA Tour victory came in the 2014 Kingsmill Championship and has lost twice in playoffs during her career, has finished in the top 10 four times this season, including second in the AIG Women’s Open and the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. She also has five other finishes in the top 25 this season and has finished second five times in her career. In addition, Salas this year played on the U.S. team in the Solheim Cup for the fifth time, posting a 1-2-1 record and is 7-8-3 in her career, including 3-1-1 in singles.

In college golf, it was all about Pepperdine’s men’s team and Stanford’s Rachel Heck, who earned the 2021 Annika Award as the best player in NCAA Division I:

The Waves, coached by Michael Beard, captured their second NCAA Division I Men’s Championship by defeating Oklahoma, 3-2, in the match-play final at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. Pepperdine was No. 1 in the nation in 2020, but didn’t get a chance to play for the national title it also won in 1997 because much of the season was canceled because of the Coronavirus pandemic. Clay Feagler, a redshirt senior from Laguna Nigel, provided the Waves with the winning point when he pulled out a 1-up victory over Ben Lorenz of Oklahoma by halving the 18th hole with a four-foot par putt. Left-hander Joe Highsmith, a junior from Lakeland, Wash., gave Pepperdine a 4-and-3 victory over Garret Reband, and William Mouw, a sophomore from Chino, beat Quade Cummins, 4 and 3.

Rachel Heck, a freshman from Memphis, Tenn., claimed her fifth consecutive victory and sixth of the season by becoming the first Cardinal to capture the NCAA Division I Women’s Individual Championship when she beat Emma Spitz of UCLA by one stroke at Grayhawk. Heck, a five-time AJGA Rolex All-American and two-time USA Today High School Golfer of the Year, posted a score of 69-67-70-74—280, 8-under-par, while Spitz, a Bruins sophomore from Austria, finished at 72-70-71-68—281. Angelina Ye, a Stanford junior from China, was third at 77-69-65-71—282.

In the women’s amateur ranks, there was no one better than Rose Zhang of Irvine, the top-ranked player in the world who keeps adding to her accomplishments.

The 18-year-old Zhang won the 2021 U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship after claiming the 2020 U.S.

PHOTO: MICHAEL WEINSTEIN

PHOTO: COURTESY OF STANFORD PHOTO

Anna Davis

Rose Zhang

Women’s Amateur Championship, becoming the eighth player to claim both those titles. Zhang has moved on to Stanford and it’s been more of the same as she captured the Molly Collegiate Invitational, the Windy City Collegiate and the Stanford Intercollegiate, leading the Cardinal to the team title each time. This is nothing new, as Zhang won the Toyota Junior World Cup, Swinging Skirts AJGA Invitational and Rolex Tournament of Champions in 2019. Twice she was named winner of the McCormack Medal winner as the world’s top women’s amateur golfer, was a two-time Rolex Junior Player of the Year and played in the Curtis Cup four times.

Stewart Hagestad of Newport Beach and USC captured the U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship for the second time in September, beating Mark Costanza of Morristown, N.J., 2 and 1, in the 40th edition of the tournament at Sankaty Head Golf Club in Siasconset, Mass. The 30-year-old Hagestad, who also won the U.S. Mid-Amateur title in 2016, has a 20-3 match play record in this tournament. Hagestad also captured the 2021 George C. Thomas Invitational.

And there were stars in California junior golf, as well:

Anna Davis, 15, of Spring Valley won the 45th Girls Junior PGA Championship, the PING Heather Farr Classic, the eBob Junior Championship and the Tiffany Joh Junior Championship, and is No. 2 in the American Junior Golf Association Girls Rankings. Eric Lee of Fullerton is No. 4 in the Boys Rankings after finishing in the top 10 four times in five events, and Jackson Koivun of San Jose, who won the Jack Burke Jr. Invitational, is No. 8.

PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE AJGA

Eric Lee

PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE AJGA