2026 High School Boys Golf Preview<\/p>\n
First match: Was Feb. 21<\/p>\n
Championship dates:\u00a0First round is May 18 at Steele Canyon Golf Club, final round is May 20 at Torrey Pines North<\/p>\n
Defending champions:\u00a0Torrey Pines (Division 1), Cathedral Catholic (Division 2) and Bishop\u2019s (Division 3)<\/p>\n
Defending individual champion: Evan Liu, Torrey Pines<\/p>\n
Rivalry<\/p>\n
Torrey Pines High School and Cathedral Catholic are natural rivals. They sit on Del Mar Heights Road, separated by 1.8 miles. Last May, Torrey Pines won its 10th straight San Diego Section Division 1 title. Cathedral took home the Division 2 trophy. But for the first time in Torrey Pines\u2019 10-year run, the Falcons didn\u2019t win the overall title. That honor went to Cathedral Catholic, which finished 32 strokes ahead of the Falcons.\u00a0The next week, at the SoCal Championship in Chino Hills, Torrey Pines advanced to the state championship at Poppy Hills\u00a0Golf\u00a0Course in Pebble Beach. Cathedral failed to qualify.<\/p>\n
Chasing history <\/p>\n
After finishing second as a freshman, Torrey Pines\u2019 Evan Liu, then a sophomore, won the San Diego Section title last year. Two weeks later, he shot a 7-under 64 at Poppy Hills to take second in the state championship.<\/p>\n
Liu was named the section\u2019s Golfer of the Year.<\/p>\n
Now a junior, Liu will try to become the first golfer since Christian\u2019s Joe Almquist (1997, 1998) to earn the honor in back-to-back seasons. Phil Mickelson won the award in 1987 and 1988.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnytime you get your name up there with a guy like Phil Mickelson, who has won six majors, golf\u2019s oldest majors champion, it\u2019s special,\u201d said Liu. \u201cThat\u2019s something to be proud of. It\u2019s probably not good to look that far ahead. I should stay where my feet are. But I\u2019m going to keep going the way I have and hope that leads to some good things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Liu, Take 2<\/p>\n
Liu has committed to play collegiately at North Carolina. He picked the Tar Heels over Stanford.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was not an easy decision,\u201d Liu said. \u201cThe culture at the University of North Carolina, the coaches there, I couldn\u2019t ask for a better group of guys. And I think there\u2019s a ton of value learning how to play golf somewhere other than the West Coast. I play well on the West Coast in these conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he wants more experience golfing, particularly putting, on surfaces other than what he sees in California.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlso, it can get a little cold elsewhere and I have more trouble adapting,\u201d he said. \u201cThat was definitely a factor in my decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Golfers to watch <\/p>\n
(in alphabetical order)<\/p>\n
Kaden Chang, Carlsbad, Jr.<\/p>\n
JT Cochrane, Bishop\u2019s, So.<\/p>\n
Roman Dammkoehler, Torrey Pines, Sr.<\/p>\n
Kenyon Kahler, Carlsbad, Jr.<\/p>\n
Milton Kromydas, La Costa Canyon, Jr.<\/p>\n
Evan Liu, Torrey Pines, Jr.<\/p>\n
Oliver Mayson, Cathedral Catholic, Jr.<\/p>\n
Brady Neal, Cathedral Catholic, Jr.<\/p>\n
Charlie Qiu, La Jolla Country Day, Jr.<\/p>\n
Alex Renda, Torrey Pines, So.<\/p>\n
Luke Schnider, San Marcos, Sr.<\/p>\n
Ethan Schramm, Classical Academy, Jr.<\/p>\n
Ty Smock, Classical Academy, Jr.<\/p>\n
Yunze Wang, Cathedral Catholic, So.<\/p>\n
Weiqiao Zhang, Cathedral Catholic, Jr.<\/p>\n
Ryan Zhao, Westview, Sr.<\/p>\n
\u2014 DON NORCROSS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2026 High School Boys Golf Preview First match: Was Feb. 21 Championship dates:\u00a0First round is May 18 at…","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"csco_display_header_overlay":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_volume":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[165,166,745,746,905,250,1184,1185,121],"class_list":["post-11743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-golf","tag-del-mar-times","tag-del-mar-times-sports","tag-high-school-sports","tag-latest-headlines","tag-rancho-santa-fe-review","tag-rancho-santa-fe-review-sports","tag-sports","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@fogolf\/117383685963067056","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fogolf.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}