UC San Diego opened its men's golf season Thursday with three returning players and two freshmen in the lineup at the Ram Masters Invitational in Fort Collins, Colorado. Senior Justin Gill holds the first position, followed by sophomore Ethan Lien, sophomore Hanjie Yu, Jerry Zhu and Cole Kim.
Colorado State's tournament runs for 54 holes across two days at Fort Collins Country Club. The format calls for 36 holes Thursday and the final 18 Friday, with both days beginning at 7 a.m. Pacific. The course is listed at 7,234 yards and par 70.
Gill enters with the lowest returning stroke average in the announced group, 72.7 from last season. Lien averaged 73.2 and Yu 73.4. Zhu and Kim will make their college debuts in a field that includes BYU, Colorado and three other Big West programs: Cal State Fullerton, UC Davis and UC Santa Barbara.
The lineup makes the transition plain. UC San Diego lost five players from last season's roster, including Davis McDowell, who won this tournament with a six-under score. Gill and Yu also played in that Ram Masters, helping the Tritons finish fifth among 16 teams.
McDowell's absence removes the defending individual champion from the return trip. The immediate question is how much scoring responsibility shifts to Gill, Lien and Yu while the freshmen learn a course under tournament conditions. Five scores are recorded each round, with the four lowest counting toward the team total.
UC San Diego's 2025-26 results showed both consistency and room above it. The Tritons posted seven top-five finishes in 11 tournaments, including runner-up at the Pearl at Kalauao Invitational and third-place results at their home event, the Redhawk Invitational and the Falcon Invitational. They placed fourth at the Big West Championship.
Those finishes do not carry points into the new season. They do establish the level the smaller roster is trying to maintain. UC San Diego lists only seven players this year: four returners and three newcomers. Austin Woods and Branden Wong are not in the opening five announced Wednesday.
The Ram Masters is the first step in a ten-event regular-season schedule and the last UC San Diego campaign that will end at the Big West Championship. The department is scheduled to move to the West Coast Conference in July 2027, making each conference result part of a final Big West comparison.
The opening day will demand durability as well as low scores. Thirty-six competitive holes leave little time to correct a poor start, while Friday's single round gives teams fewer chances to make up ground. For Zhu and Kim, the assignment compresses a first college lineup appearance into the tournament's longest day; for the returners, it tests whether experience can keep the counting total stable around them.
Live scoring will provide the first evidence on how the new order holds up. Early-round totals can move sharply when two newcomers are playing their first college event, and one tournament will not define the roster. Colorado will show whether the returning core can absorb the graduation losses without giving away the depth that drove last season's repeated top-five finishes.