As the 2024 boys high school golf season began, Torrey Pines’ team goal was the same as it always has been: to win a state championship.
After some early season struggles, including a loss in a dual match to Cathedral Catholic, coach Chris Drake thought maybe those expectations needed to be adjusted.
“I told the athletic director, we might not be able to make it out of San Diego (to the Southern California Regional),” Drake said.
In the end, Drake’s worries were for naught. Playing Wednesday on the par-71, 6,664-yard San Gabriel Country Club course, Torrey Pines wrote another chapter in golf lore by winning the Falcons’ seventh CIF boys state championship. No other school has won it more than three times.
The Falcons’ five-man scoring team finished at six-over par to win by six strokes over two-time defending champion Concord De La Salle.
“It’s always been a little bit surreal,” Drake said by phone. “For them to turn it on when it really matters is a good statement of their character.”
Drake has won four boys and girls state championships.
“It never gets old,” he said.
Similar to the previous week at SoCal Regionals, the Falcons were led by a senior (Jay Len) and a freshman (Evan Liu).
Len, who will attend Stanford University, finished tied for third individually with a 3-under 68. Liu finished tied for sixth with a 2-under 69. The Falcons’ other three scorers were sophomore Roman Damkohler (73), junior Ethan Elleras (75) and senior Collin Lee (76), who will attend Yale University.
The win was especially sweet for Len, who was on the team that placed second at the Southern California Regionals as a freshman (there was no state championship that year because of the COVID-19 pandemic).
And he was on the Torrey Pines team that finished second to De La Salle in the state championships the past two years.
“We felt like we had to win at least one (state title),” Wren said.
Torrey Pines High School senior Jay Leng poses with the CiF state championship trophy.
(Chris Drake)
Len led Torrey Pines to the Southern California championships last week while battling a 101.4-degree fever, and he overcame some adversity to lead the way again Wednesday.
On Monday, he finished playing in a junior tournament at West Point, Mississippi, and was scheduled to fly to Los Angeles that evening. However, his connecting flight to LAX was canceled due to bad weather. Len slept overnight in a chair at the airport and flew to Los Angeles on Tuesday morning, only to find that none of his three bags, one of which contained his golf clubs, had made it on the flight. He later learned that one of the bags had landed in San Diego.
Len and his family drove to San Diego on Tuesday to pick up one bag, which contained his clubs.
“We were very excited,” he said.
Len arrived at the Falcons’ hotel Tuesday night around 9 p.m. He teed off at 8:20 a.m. Wednesday and finished with a round of three birdies, one eagle and one double bogey.
“That’s Jay,” Drake said of Len overcoming adversity two weeks in a row.
Torrey Pines’ previous state championships are 1976, 1981, 2004, 2011, 2016 and 2018. Classical Academy finished tied for fifth in the team championship. Max Emberson of Westlake Village Oaks Christian shot a 5-under 66 to win the individual tournament.
Drake said the Falcons were able to overcome early-season struggles, including two tough tournament losses, thanks in part to their teamwork.
“Walking around the tournament today, not a single player asked me, ‘How are you doing (in individual matches)?'” Drake said. “They asked, ‘How’s your team? Where are you?'”
Len embodied that attitude. He was three under par heading into the 18th hole and knew he had a good chance of winning the individual title. But instead of hitting a driver on the 392-yard par, he hit a four-iron. The shot landed in the fairway and Len finished with par.
When asked why he played it safe, Len said, “I thought the team was more important.”
