Another year of amazing golf at the gorgeous Torrey Pines concluded Saturday with a gutsy victory from Georgia-born Harris English. Further back in the field however you could find five PGA pros with a history in San Diego. Of them, three made the final cut and earned a nice payday.
San Diego State graduate J.J. Spaun had the best outing of the five. Spaun graduated from SDSU in 2012 and went pro in that same year. He joined the PGA Tour back in 2017 and has put on for San Diego ever since.
Spaun did get off to a somewhat mediocre start, finishing round one with a score of one over, which placed him tied for 100th place out of the 156 golfers in the field. But on cut day he gained ground and salvaged his tournament thanks in large part to an eagle on hole 17. He finished round two even, dropping him to a score of plus-one and earning him a spot in the final 70.
It was smooth sailing from there for Spaun. In back-to-back days he went one under, climbing the leaderboard en route to a final placement of T15, representing the Aztecs quite well.
Veteran Charley Hoffman was next on the leaderboard. Hoffman was a former attendee of Poway High School who turned pro in 2000. Coming into the event Hoffman discussed his presence as a hometown veteran stating “Now, I’m sort of the older guy and hopefully we get the town out here supporting me and put on a show for them.”
Hoffman played good golf all week, starting round one with a score of two under. However round two brought some drama for the experienced locals. A late bogey seemingly killed Hoffman’s run, but his excellent day one was enough to get him past the cut.
Round three saw Hoffman move back to one under thanks to his two birdies on the day. Hoffman would fall off slightly on day four but nonetheless finished his round even, guiding him to an overall even score and a final placement of T25, a very nice outing.
The last San Diego-related golfer to make the cut was 26-year-old Norman Xioung.
Xioung was initially born in Guam, but he moved to San Diego when he was young. It was in San Diego when he fell in love with the game of Golf.
In his local event, Xioung started off very strong going four under which placed him within the top 15 at T15. The performance was off the back of five total birdies.
Unfortunately, Xioung peaked on day one. After the strong performance, Xioung shot over par every other day of the tournament. Round two’s plus two finish did get him into the final field with an overall score of two under. But a three-over performance and a one-over performance on days three and four put him out of contention. Nonetheless, Xioung earned some cash finishing the Open tied for 40th position.
Torrey Pines high school graduate Micheal Kim was about as local as you can get to the event. Sadly the familiarity with the area did not result in success. Kim instantly dealt with issues to open the event, shooting plus one on the very first hole. It did not get much better from there. Kim went on to shoot five over on day one finishing T146. Day two was almost a carbon copy of day one with Kim finishing his round at five over missing the cut and finishing with a two-round score of ten over.
The last of the San Diego golfers was Christian high school graduate Cavin McCall. The Open served as McCalls PGA tour debut as well. The debut came with growing pains. McCall finished day one at T156, last place. His scorecard came in at a tough eight over on day one. Similar to Kim, day two was a near duplicate for McCall, finishing eight over to place him at plus 16 overall forcing him to head home before the weekend championship.
San Diego was well-represented in the field this year at the Open with the three golfers making the cut earning just shy of 250 thousand dollars between them.
