How Bay Area-adjacent golfers fared over first two days of the 2025 U.S. Open

A number of golfers with ties to the Bay Area teed it up at Oakmont Golf Club for the 2025 U.S. Open. Here’s a look at how they fared over the first two days of competition:

Collin Morikawa – A SoCal native who played for Berkeley Men’s Golf from 2015 to 2019, Morikawa tops the list of golfers with Bay Area connections after the first two days of the 2025 U.S. Open. Rounds of 70 and 74 have him sitting at 4-under, T23, seven strokes back of 36-hole leader Sam Burns.

Morikawa has the strongest major tournament cred of any NorCal player in this year’s Open, with wins at the 2020 PGA Championship at Harding Park in San Francisco, and the 2021 Open Championship (aka the British Open) at Royal St George’s Golf Club in Sandwich, England to his credit.

Maverick McNealy – The young man who was named after a 1970s Ford compact car sits one spot back of Collin Morikawa on the U.S. Open leaderboard after 36 holes. A 2017 graduate of Stanford University, McNealy turned in one of only six below-par rounds on the second day of the tournament, a one-under 69. Added to his opening-round 76, that leaves him in a nine-way tie for 36th at +5.

McNealy, who is the son of Sun Microsystems co-founder Scott McNealy, grew up at Pebble Beach and in Portola Valley, on the San Francisco Peninsula. He has one PGA Tour win to his credit, the 2024 RSM Classic, and narrowly missed out on a win at the 2021 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, where he finished second to Daniel Berger. His highest finish in a major tournament is T23 at the 2024 PGA Championship.

Sadly, Morikawa and McNealy are the only Bay Area-adjacent golfers who will be playing on the weekend in Oakmont. Others with Bay Area connections who won’t be playing the final rounds include amateur Jackson Koivun, who was born in San Jose but grew up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and is a rising junior at Auburn University; Mark Hubbard, a native of Denver, Colorado who played his college golf at San Jose State from 2007 to 2011; Kevin Velo, a native of Danville and former San Jose State Spartan who turned pro in 2020; and James Hahn, of Alameda, a 2013 Berkely graduate who notched his first PGA Tour win in 2015 at the then-Northern Trust Open at Riviera Country Club.

Chico’s Kurt Kitayama leads after two rounds at AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am

Pebble Beach Golf Links, and indeed all of the Monterey Peninsula, on and off the three golf courses where the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am is taking place this week, is utterly spectacular in bright, sunny weather. In gloomy, overcast weather like today, with a little bit of light rain and drizzle thrown in, it takes on an entirely different aspect—calm, quiet, and conducive to introspection and deep thoughts.

OK, enough of that—let’s talk about golf.

Today’s light rain and drizzle—though it led PGA Tour officials to launch a preemptive strike and call for “lift, clean, and place” for the first three rounds, despite Thursday being mostly clear and dry—did not impede play at any of the tournament’s three courses: Pebble Beach Golf Links, Spyglass Hill, and MPCC Shore. The 8:30 opening tee times went off without a hitch at all three, and play was never stopped or delayed over the course of the day.

The stiff onshore breeze that was bending the flagstick on Pebble’s shore-hugging 18th hole late Thursday afternoon died down overnight; only a moderate surf breaking against the rocks at the water’s edge broke the calm.

First-round leader Hank Lebioda, who opened with an 8-under 63 at MPCC Shore on Thursday, started his morning with a birdie at the daunting par-four 10th hole at Pebble Beach, solidifying his lead, while a posse of other players, including Chico, California’s Kurt Kitayama, Harry Higgs, and England’s Justin Rose, moved up to 8-under.

Rose, playing at Spyglass Hill, went out in 32 on the back nine, on the strength of two birdies and an ace—at the par-three 15th hole—with another birdie, at the 3rd hole, pulling him to within a shot of the leader, but two late bogeys dropped him to 6-under and T-11. Harry Higgs carded two birdies and an eagle, at Pebble’s par-four 4th hole, with a bogey at the par-five 6th—after excursions to the left rough, the right rough, and a right greenside bunker—marring his card, also dropping to 6-under and T-11.

The wind came up after lunch, most noticeably at Pebble Beach, but it appeared not to faze Kitayama, who closed his second round at the 9th hole, a tough cliffside par-four, after rolling in a birdie at #8 to tie Lebioda at 9-under.

After moving to 10-under and the solo lead earlier in the day after a birdie at #2, the shortish par-five which has played the easiest today relative to par, Lebioda dropped back to 8-under with a double-bogey 5 at the fifth hole. Designed by Jack Nicklaus and put into play in 1998, number 5 is a deceptively difficult par-three that is playing second-toughest in the tournament to date with an average score of 3.58. Recovering one of his lost strokes with a birdie at the long, intimidating par-five 6th hole, a bogey at #9 dropped Lebioda to 8-under, T2.

With that slip by Lebioda, Kurt Kitayama inherited the lead going into the weekend.

Kitayama’s lead headlines a strong halfway-point showing by NorCal golfers. San José native and Stanford Men’s Golf alum Joseph Bramlett went around the Shore Course at Monterey Peninsula Country Club in 4-under 67 today to close the day at 8-under, T-2; Brandon Wu, another Stanford Men’s Golf alum and a native of Danville, joined Bramlett at T-2 after completing his second round, also at MPCC Shore.

Martin Trainer of Palo Alto sits T-12 at 6-under; Maverick McNealy, who narrowly missed a win in this tournament two years ago, sits at 1-under after two rounds, T-57, as does Nick Watney of Davis. UCLA graduate Kevin Chappell, a native of Fresno, is even par going into the third round, and James Hahn of Alameda is at 3-over. Hahn, who notched his first win at the 2015 Northern Trust Open at Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, recovered from a 6-over first round at Spyglass Hill with a 3-under 69 at MPCC Shore today.

Tomorrow’s forecast is showing rain, with high winds in the afternoon prompting a one-hour bump in the starting tee times. First balls will be in the air at 7:30 a.m. at the tournament’s three courses, in hopes of concluding play before the worst weather moves in.

A leavening of big names enriches the field in Napa this week for PGA Tour season opener

Before the PGA Tour’s changeover to the split schedule in 2013–2014, the events which were played in the Fall and early winter, after the Tour Championship, were known as the Fall Series. These tournament were generally played by a mix of young guns, mid-packers, and former greats who had slipped off their game—players who had to scramble for starts in the regular season and were looking for opportunities to play their way into, or back into, the mainstream events of the Tour.

With the onset to the split schedule some things changed, and some things stayed the same. FedEx Cup points and a shot at a Masters berth were added to the plate for these events, adding further incentive for their traditional fields, but the fields generally remained the same, with few of the big names wanting or needing to tee it up and play before the traditional season-openers in Hawaii in January.

The newly revamped Fortinet Championship (formerly the Safeway Open; before that the Frys.com Open) sits in a somewhat precarious spot in the schedule this year—after the FedEx Cup and the week-long PGA Tour “off-season”, and immediately before the Ryder Cup. The crème de la crème of American players are in Wisconsin practicing at Whistling Straits with Ryder Cup skipper Steve Stricker, so some of the big names that golf fans would love to see this week won’t be in the field. Despite that, there will still be plenty of talent, and a few big names, striding the fairways of the North Course at the Silverado Resort & Spa in Napa later this week.

One big-name early commit is fan favorite Phil Mickelson. Mickelson was the official tournament spokesman for event during its four-year run as the Safeway Open, thanks to his association with tournament organizers Lagardère Sports, and has remained in that role after the handover to cyber-security company Fortinet as presenting sponsor of the event. Presumably he doesn’t need to be in Wisconsin this week to prep for his role as a Ryder Cup vice-captain.

One surprising, and very welcome, name in the field this week is Jon Rahm, the current holder of the World #1 ranking and a member of the 2021 European Ryder Cup team that will be in Whistling Straits next week.

You have to read down the OWGR list to #20, Hideki Matsuyama, for the next top-tier name that is appearing in the field at Silverado this week, hopscotching over a bunch of guys who will be teeing it up at Whistling Straits next week, on both squads. Webb Simpson and Kevin Na round out the rest of the Top 30 players who are in the field this week.

Plenty of other notable, recognizable names are in the field, though, such PGA Tour stalwarts as Charley Hoffman, Charles Howell III, Matt Kuchar, Pat Perez, Jason Dufner, Brandt Snedeker, and Harold Varner III.

Former champions of the event who are in the field this year include Sangmoon Bae (2014) and Emiliano Grillo (2015) from the Frys.com Open days; Brendan Steele (2016, 2017), the first Safeway Open champ, who liked it so well he came back and did it again the next year; and Kevin Tway (2018). Other players of note whom fans will be able to see this week are Danny Willett, who benefitted from Jordan Spieth’s 2016 Masters meltdown to take home that year’s green jacket; and newly named PGA Tour Rookie of the Year, Will Zalatoris.

Players of particular interest to Northern California golf fans include 2019 winner Cameron Champ, of Sacramento; Kevin Chappell, out of Fresno and UCLA; former Stanford Men’s golf team members Patrick Rodgers, Brandon Wu, San José native Joseph Bramlett, and Hillsborough’s Maverick McNealy; Cal Men’s golf graduates James Hahn, of Alameda, and Max Homa; former SJSU Spartan Mark Hubbard, and Sacramento native and Fresno State grad Nick Watney.

Journeyman Ted Potter, Jr. stares down past champions to take AT&T Pro-Am title

At the close of play Saturday at the 2018 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am the scene was set for a Jack-the-Giant-Killer scenario – World #1 Dustin Johnson, a two-time winner in this event, in 2009 and 2010, surged to the top of the leaderboard with a 64 at Pebble Beach, but a few miles away, past the Lone Cypress, around the curve of Cypress Point along 17-Mile Drive, Ted Potter, Jr. was making some magic happen at Monterey Peninsula Country Club, carding a 9-under 62 to jump up onto the top step with DJ for Sunday’s final round.

2018 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am winner Ted Potter Jr. speaks to the media after holding off a pack of higher-ranked pursuers to collect his second PGA Tour win.  (photo by author)

Opening with a 6-under 30 on MPCC’s back nine, Potter bid fair to do the same on the front side, but after a bogey-bogey stumble at the last two holes he had to settle for 9-under 62 and a share of the tournament lead going into Sunday’s final round.

Ted who?

They say that even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while. Sunday at Pebble Beach Potter, a one-time “Central Florida mini-tour legend”, did just that. He has five Top 10 finishes in 84 PGA Tour starts, including a win at the 2012 Greenbrier Classic. Take out that 2012 win and his average PGA Tour paycheck is $22,000. For this win his paycheck is $1,332,000.

After a near record-breaking performance Saturday at MPCC, the 34-year-old from Ocala, Florida, who last played in a final group on Sunday in 2011, in the Web.com Tour’s Soboba Classic, came out swinging on Sunday morning with four birdies and a bogey in the first seven holes, while co-leader Johnson stuttered his way through the same stretch at 1-under.

DJ made another bogey at the wicked-hard par-4 eighth hole after his second shot found the bunker behind the green, dropping him to T-3 alongside Troy Merritt, as Chez Reavie moved past him into solo second with birdies at 8 and 9.

Meanwhile, Ted Potter Jr. was waltzing through the latter stages of the biggest finish of his pro-golf career like it was one of the Central Florida mini-tour events he used to dominate. A nerveless par from a scary spot above the hole on #11, the worst position on the slipperiest green on the course, was typical of his play to that point.

With a pack that included Phil Mickelson, Chez Reavie, Kevin Streelman, Dustin Johnson, Troy Merritt, and Jason Day in pursuit, Potter – the “Ocala mini-tour legend” – coasted in while the #1 player in the world, a former #1, and a host of much higher-ranked players tripped over themselves in a vain attempt to chase down the 246th-ranked player in the world.

All efforts came to naught, however, as the field trailed the mini-tour legend from Central Florida to the finish. Phil Mickelson’s 67 fell three shots short, as did Chez Reavie’s 68.

Jason Day made a dramatic effort with driver off the deck for his second shot at #18, only to see the ball ricochet off the seawall left of the fairway, leaving him a third shot from the eponymous pebble beach behind the scoreboard. He knocked that one over the green into the front bunker, chipped out and made a 17-foot putt for what was probably the least likely par in the history of the 18th hole at Pebble Beach. Day closed with 70 to join Mickelson, Reavie, and Johnson in a tie for second place.

Potter played the final hole with two fairway woods, and a 9-iron to 14 feet, lagging to two inches from there and tapping in for a 69 on the day, 17-under for the tournament, and a three-stroke win.

The win jumps Potter from 117th to 15th in the FedEx Cup rankings, and earns him a two-year exemption on the PGA Tour and an invitation to the Masters.

“(My goals for the year) will definitely have to change now,” Potter said in a post-round interview. “I’m just happy to be where I am right now.”

NorCal player results

Among players with a Northern California association, Fresno’s Kevin Chappell and former Stanford Men’s Golf star Patrick Rodgers brought home the best result, T-8. Chappell posted a 5-under 67, with three birdies in his first nine, and two bogeys bookending four birdies in his final nine, for his best finish in this event since 2009, when he was T-6; Rodgers closed with a 1-over 73.

Walnut Creek’s Brandon Haskins made the biggest move of the day, closing with a 6-under 66 that rocketed him 45 spots up the leaderboard to finish T-15.

James Hahn of Alameda fired a 4-under 68 to close out the tournament at 7-under, T-26 – a 33-spot move up the leaderboard. Sacramento’s Nick Watney carded an even-par 72 to close at 4-under for a T-47 finish.

Bryson DeChambeau struggled to a 3-over 75 for a final score of 3-under and a T-55 finish. Stockton’s Ricky Barnes finished T-62, at 2-under.