CMS Men's Golf Leads By 11 After First Day of Bulldog Invitational

REDLANDS, Calif. - The Claremont-Mudd-Scripps men's golf team, fresh off a dominant win at the California State Intercollegiate Tournament last week, got off to another strong start at its second tournament of 2021-22, shooting even par and taking an 11-shot lead after 36 holes at the Bulldog Invitational on Monday.

The Stags shot -31 as a team at the Cal State Intercollegiate, finishing in the red for all three rounds as it set a program record for low score in a 54-hole tournament with an 833 (14 strokes better than the previous standard). At the par-70 Redlands Country Club on Monday, they ended up at even par after two rounds, shooting -5 in their first round for their fourth straight below par, before settling for a +5 on their second 18. 

The even par was still enough to take a double-digit lead heading into Tuesday's final round ahead of a cluster of teams. Host Redlands currently stands in second place at +11, La Verne is in third at +14, and Whitworth and Embry-Riddle are knotted in fourth place at +15. 

Will Parker had a stellar opening round for CMS, finishing with a 65 (-5) to lead all competitors after 18 holes. Through 36 holes, he stands at -3, putting him in second place. just one shot off the lead held by Sam Pauly of Whitworth, heading into Tuesday.

CMS has three golfers in the top four on the individual leaderboard through 36 holes, although Joshua Kwon, who stands in third place at -2 after a second-round 67, is competing as an individual and doesn't factor into the Stag team total. Yuefeng (Michael) Ma is tied for fourth at -1. after shooting a 68 in the second round, while Adrian Chiu is tied for ninth at +3. Vijay Jain scored for CMS in the first round with a 70 and now stands tied for 13th, while Kevin Jiang was the fourth scorer in the second round with a 72 and is now tied for 17th, putting all six Stags in the top 20 out of the 64-golfer field. 

The Stags open their final round on Tuesday morning at 8 a.m. with a chance for their second straight win to start the 2021 season. It would also be five wins in the last six events for CMS, which won three of its four tournaments in 2019-20, the last being the first SCIAC Tournament on February 29-March 1, 2020, before the season was shut down due to the pandemic.