STANFORD, Calif. - No. 45 Stanford continues the spring portion of the schedule this week, heading to La Quinta, Calif., serving as a co-host alongside UC Davis for The Prestige tournament on Feb. 17-19.
THE COURSE » The Greg Norman Course at PGA West is a par-71, 7185-yard track that has been described as “challenging but fair.” Boasting 102 bunkers, the Greg Norman course is easily identifiable by its usage of sand instead of a normal rough along the fairways, giving it a distinct flavor out of the rest of the courses in the Coachella Valley.
THE FIELD » The Prestige sees a field of 24 participants including over 10 placed inside the Top 50 programs entering the week. Participants include No. 5 North Carolina, No. 15 Pepperdine, No. 23 Texas Tech, No. 31 Northwestern, No. 34 Oregon, No. 35 Louisville, No. 36 Colorado, No. 40 Colorado State and No. 43 Arkansas-Little Rock. No. 45 Stanford rounds out a list of teams that also includes Oregon State, Florida Atlantic, Yale, Princeton, San Diego, North Carolina-Wilmington, Kansas State, Loyola Marymount, Baylor, Iowa State, UC Davis, Washington State, Kansas and Nevada.
TOURNAMENT FORMAT » The tournament consists of 54 holes of competition with three rounds of 18 holes played each day under the play five, keep four format. Round one action begins with an 18-hole shotgun start at 6:45 a.m. PT with Stanford teeing off at 11 a.m.
THE CARDINAL LINEUP » Hitting the course for the Cardinal will be Nathan Wang, Jay Leng, TK Chantananuwat, Ethan Gao and Kush Arora. Competing individually for the Cardinal is Logan Kim, Sean-Karl Dobson, Dean Greyserman and Brian Ma.
TOURNAMENT COVERAGE » A live leaderboard for The Prestige is available on Scoreboard powered by Clippd.
STANFORD AT THE PRESTIGE » Stanford, which serves as a co-host for the tournament, has won The Prestige team title twice while also boasting four individual champions. The Cardinal first won the tournament in 2006, claiming both the team and individual titles with Zach Miller taking the individual crown. Stanford completed the tournament sweep again in 2014 (Patrick Rodgers, individual) while Andrew Yun (2010) and Maverick McNealy (2015) serve as the other individual champions for the Cardinal in the tournament’s history.
ALOHA STATE OF MIND » Stanford had a strong outing at the annual Amer Ari Intercollegiate , taking 11th place while TK Chantananuwat grabbed his first collegiate top-10 finish, shooting 14-under across the three day tournament to claim a stake of 10th place. Jay Leng also had his best round as a Cardinal during the tournament, shooting a career-low 66 in the second round before finishing the weekend inside the top 30.
WANG’S BIG CLIMB » Closing out the fall slate of the 2024-25 campaign at The Golf Club of Georgia Collegiate, junior Nathan Wang climbed 22 spots on the final day to finish with share 11th on the leaderboard after turning in a final-round 67. The Cardinal grabbed a 13th place team finish shooting 15-over while Wang sat atop the Cardinal’s individual leaderboard shooting 4-under.
TK FINISHES TOP-20 » Returning to Colonial Country Club, Stanford turned in a seventh-place finish at the Ben Hogan Invitational with a 22-over performance for the week. Freshman TK Chantananuwat was the Cardinal's best finisher of the tournament, finishing T-19th with a 3-over 213, including an opening round 69 for the second sub-70 scorecard of his career.
BIG WIN IN WOODSIDE » In the fifth installment of the Big Match between the golf programs of Stanford and California, the Cardinal emerged victorious at Menlo Country Club, winning 4-2. It was the second time that Stanford has won the event, with its other victory coming in 2022. T.K. Chantananuwat, Ethan Gao, Logan Kim, and Nathan Wang each contributed match wins, sealing to win for Stanford.
LENG'S IMPRESSIVE DEBUT » In a condensed Fighting Illini Invitational that squeezed 54 holes of competition into two days rather than the scheduled three, Stanford opened the season with T-6th finish with an 8-over 848 weekend scorecard. Freshman Jay Leng impressed in his collegiate debut as Stanford's best finisher, placing T-15th on the weekend at 1-under par.
NATION'S TOP CLASS » Widely regarded as the top recruiting class of 2024, the Cardinal inked three exciting young golfers joining the program this season - T.K. Chantananuwat, Jay Leng Jr., and Logan Kim.
Chantananuwat, one of the world's best golf prospects, won the Trust Asian Mixed Cup at just 15 years of age to become the youngest player ever to win an event on a major professional tour. The Bangkok native has ranked as high as sixth in the World Amateur Golf Rankings and is the top Asian amateur golfer.
Leng is among California's elite in junior golf, ranked as the No. 1 recruit in the state according to Junior Golf Scoreboard. The San Diego native is a multiple AJGA Junior Tour champion and a two-time AJGA First-Team Rolex All-American.
Kim rounds out the 2024 class as yet another in-state commitment coming to The Farm. The San Jose native is the fourth-ranked recruit in the state of California according to Junior Golf Scoreboard, a Southern California Junior PGA Tour tournament winner, and has multiple top ten finishes on the AJGA Tour.
BOLSTERING THE STAFF » Stanford head coach Conrad Ray recently completed his staff ahead of the 2024-25 season, announcing the addition of Hong Seh Lim Assistant Men’s Golf Coach Alex Merrill on Monday afternoon.
Joining the staff in a newly-endowed role, Merrill comes to The Farm after a two-year tenure at Purdue as the Director of Administration & Performance for Golf, where he managed the operations and strength & conditioning for both the men's and women's golf programs. Under his guidance, the Boilermaker golf programs combined for six tournament wins and a pair of NCAA Championship appearances.
Previous stops for Merrill also includes Duke University, where he spent 12 seasons as a sports performance coach, as well as Attain Sports Performance in western Massachusetts.