Guns blazing, Cal heads to Del Paso for Gunrock Invitational
Less than a 20-minute drive from a largely concrete, downtown Sacramento lies a perfectly manicured Del Paso Country Club. Like any standard green, it has all of the fixings: 18 holes on a stretch of more than 6,000 yards, sprinkled with trees, creeks and lakes.
Though, as the city’s most historic course, it’s already been redesigned three times in the last 41 years. Juxtaposed with all of the trees, creeks and lakes is thick vegetation lining the fairways on rolling hills. In other words, for as grandiose as the course seems, it is still rough around the edges –– kind of like the state of Cal women’s golf team’s 2022 spring season thus far.
Come Monday, Feb. 28, the Bears will head to Del Paso for their second event this year: the Gunrock Invitational. Staying through the turn of the new month, they’ll play a second time Tuesday, March 1 before coming back home to Berkeley.
On the heels of the team’s most recent performance at the Lamkin Invitational in Rancho Santa Fe, the stakes are even higher. Amid a field of 14 teams, Cal finished 12th, dropping it from No. 41 to No. 44, according to Golfstat’s national rankings. According to Golfweek, the Bears place in the same ballpark at No. 49 as of Feb. 24.
Leading the charge for the blue and gold were sophomore Cristina Ochoa and junior Jasmine Lew. After placing No. 27 and No. 44 out of 75 golfers, respectively, look for them to elevate the team’s all-around performance. In particular, Ochoa is one relatively new bright spot for the Bears, as she only participated in one event for Cal last fall season (Molly Collegiate Invitational). Already, though, the local from Colombia has placed in the top half of all golfing events she’s participated in since September 2021, including a top-25 finish at the Women’s Amateur Latin America championships.
Another returner to keep an eye out for is senior Katherine Zhu, who led Cal in scoring average for a second straight season (74.3) as a junior and finished top 10 in two events. Though Zhu is coming off of a relatively quiet outing in Rancho Sante Fe, she has a history of showing up guns blazing in the Gunrock Invitational.
Last year, Zhu tied for eighth place individually out of 65 golfers, shooting a career-best 6-under par 210. Even more spectacular, however, was her performance as a sophomore, in which she won the tournament by a total of three strokes. Right beside Zhu in her most recent trip to Del Paso was Lew, who placed 14th and shot 2-under par 214.
As a unit, Cal has all of the right pieces to make a mark in the green of Del Paso. Last year, it put together the fifth-best showing out of a slate of 11 competitors. But as one of only three top-100 teams in the nation participating in the upcoming event, this time around should — and ought to — be different.
Though the contours and obstacles of the course may be difficult to navigate, it’s nothing that the blue and gold haven’t seen before. Should the Bears maximize their abilities in this year’s Gunrock Invitational, they may just be able to turn around their season from rough around the edges to neatly manicured.
Ryan Chien is the sports editor. Contact him at rchien@dailycal.org, and follow him on Twitter @RyanChienMedia.