Zhang’s Fourth-Place Finish Leads Men’s Golf to All-Time Best NCAA Regional Result

No. 124 Harvard (-9, T8) earned its best-ever NCAA Regionals finish in Athens, Ga., at the University of Georgia Golf Course, where sophomore Barry Zhang (-11, T4) led the Crimson, the Ivy Champion, to a shared eighth-place finish with No. 50 Northwestern (-9, T8).

Zhang’s fourth-place finish was the best NCAA Regional performance by a Harvard athlete in school history. His overall score of -11 also set a school record for the best individual performance at an NCAA Regional.

Despite Zhang’s tremendous performance, none of the Crimson will travel to Carlsbad, Calif., for the National Championship, as the five lowest-scoring teams and the lowest-scoring individual — not from a top-five team — advance.

No. 54 Malan Potgeiter (-14, T1) from the University of Louisiana, who advanced to regionals as an individual, narrowly bested Zhang as the lowest scoring individual to earn qualification for nationals.

In spite of not advancing to nationals, Harvard still fulfilled the goal outlined by its sophomore captain William Ma (-5, T14), whose 14th-place finish was the third best in Crimson NCAA Regionals history, leading up to the tournament.

“We want to keep on working hard and keep on getting better and see if we can do something special at regionals,” Ma said.

And do something special, the Crimson most certainly did.

While eighth place might not jump off the page, it resolutely etched itself into Harvard’s storied history books as the Crimson outscored four teams, including No. 12 Illinois (-7, T11) and No. 37 Kansas (-7, T11), to tie for eighth in the intensely competitive regional.

Even No. 1 Auburn (-22, 3rd) wasn’t safe in the field, as No. 13 Vanderbilt (-28, 1st) and No. 36 Louisville (-26, 2nd) outperformed several higher-ranked teams to secure the top two spots in the field.

No. 24 Brigham Young (BYU) (-20, 4th) and hosts No. 26 Georgia (-19, 5th) sent No. 51 Charleston (-18, 6th) home in a neck-and-neck race for the coveted last two national qualifying spots.

In a game of razor-thin margins, Harvard was only 10 strokes behind fifth place and Nationals qualification, with the team score of 843 strokes being 56 strokes better than the previously held team record for NCAA Regional play.

The story of Harvard’s record-breaking tournament differed significantly from the Ivy League Championships, however, as the sun of Athens was much friendlier to Harvard than the chilly rains of round two in Springfield, NJ.

Yet, what hasn’t changed across tournaments this season is the Crimson’s status as the youngest team in the Ivy League.

Its NCAA Regional roster was composed entirely of underclassmen with only one upperclassman, junior Johnathon Hartono, traveling as the team’s designated substitute.

Throughout the season, Harvard’s freshmen golfers faced entering the challenging and time-consuming college golf landscape while having to adjust to Cambridge and college life more broadly.

What set the Crimson apart from many other collegiate programs, including many in the regional round, was that freshmen didn’t always have the luxury of playing as an individual (where their score didn’t impact team performance).

Freshmen Morgan Riley (+6, T60) and Isaac Ahn (+8, T68) had either one or both of their performances count towards the team score in most rounds throughout the season, with both playing pivotal roles in Harvard’s success and growth this year.

Ahn shot even par in both rounds one and three of the Ivy Tournament, while Riley was a leading presence in Harvard’s fourth-place finish at the Cutter Creek Intercollegiate to epitomize their individual contributions this season.

In Athens, Ahn also came in clutch, hitting even with par in round one thanks to an eagle on the 561-yard par four hole 12 to help overcome four bogeys.

Unfortunately, that would be quickly reversed with a difficult round two, especially on the front nine, leaving Ahn +6 going into round three.

Hole 18, a 488-yard par four, was certainly the most challenging for Ahn, as he went from a bogey in round one, to a double bogey in round two, to ending with a triple bogey in round three.

Despite 18, however, the rookie kept consistent with his strong rounds one and three at the Ivy, by hitting three straight birdies on holes five, six, and seven to finish +2 in round three and +8 in the regional.

Riley had a less eventful regional, with a strong round one (+1) being balanced out by a more challenging round three (+3) to bring him to his overall score of +6.

Hole two, a 440-yard par four, proved to be the most difficult to navigate for Riley as he ended with a bogey in each round on that hole. Contrarily, however, he consistently excelled on par three holes, as he tied with his teammate Ma for the third lowest average score on par three holes across the regional, recording an average of 2.83 strokes or -2 across the tournament.

Ma, in large part thanks to a momentum-shifting performance in round three where he shot -4 and climbed 13 spots up the leaderboard, ended -5 in the regional and tied for 14th place.

The captain also showed marked improvement from round one, where he hit four bogeys on the front nine, and then only two in the second round, and finished with no bogeys on the front nine in round three.

He nearly even escaped bogey-free in round three, but the notorious hole 18 left him with his only bogey of the round.

Fellow sophomore Ieuan Jones (+7, T64) followed a similar pattern of improvement as Ma from start to finish as he hit +4 on the front nine of round one (+5 overall), +2 on the front nine of round two (+1 overall), and finished -1 on the front nine of round three (+1 overall).

For a young team like Harvard, these patterns of improvement throughout a tournament demonstrate an optimistic trend. As the team familiarizes itself with more and more collegiate courses, they have been developing the mental fortitude to stay focused despite the challenges of unfamiliarity and nervousness that can present on early holes.

The headliner for Harvard, Zhang, who has remained a formidable force in the Crimson’s lineup throughout the season, hit just three bogeys compared to 37 holes on par and the second-best tournament average on par fours (avg: 3.76, overall score on par fours: -8) to break the school record for individual performance in an NCAA Regional by shooting -11 overall.

Zhang’s success comes as no surprise after he won the Ivy League Individual Championship to help earn Harvard its first conference Championship since 2017.

Each round built on the next as Zhang started by hitting -2 in round one, followed by -4 in round three, and yet again came in clutch in round three, hitting -5 with five birdies on the back nine to end the regional -11.

Although it wasn’t enough to overcome the threshold for national qualification, Harvard is left with several rewritten school records and a team of mostly rising sophomores and juniors.

With a warm summer ahead, the Crimson will look to build on an Ivy Championship and a historic showing at the Athens Regional in continuing its dedicated training to see what next season will bring.

The Crimson will return to tournament action in early September, with tournament locations and information to be determined over the summer.