Junior golfer Lequan Wang sets new course record at Peninsula Golf & Country Club

“I’m at the tee box,” Wang said, asking a caller to hold briefly. “Let me get one shot.”

The two-day tournament at PGCC was a different story, though, a story to which there is certainly more than just his winning the championship. Wang rose to the top of the five-player field with a historic performance Sunday, shooting a 10-under 61 to set a new course record with the lowest single-round score in 112 years of golf at PGCC.

Wang capped his day with the simplest of taps, a four-foot downhill putt. Even after doing all the hard work on the previous stroke — a 255-foot blast of his 3-wood off the fairway that finished with a surprise chorus of applause from bystanders around the green as it nestled just past the cup — the record-clinching putt felt like anything but ordinary, Wang said.

“This is the most nervous four-footer I’ve had in my life,” Wang said. “I’ve made thousands of those ... but not many of them are for the course record.”

Entering the day in second place, trailing incoming Hillsdale junior Alejandro Formosa by 3 strokes, Wang had enjoyed a solid but unspectacular round Saturday. Shooting a 1-over 72, he was content to enjoy his time with the competition, a field that included not only his longtime friendly rival Formosa, but also 2021 St. Ignatius graduate Gio Affrunti before the older competitor departed for college.

“So I thought this would be a nice opportunity for us to just have another round of golf together,” Wang said.

Then Wang’s fiery competitive nature was sparked. He opened Sunday birdieing four of the first six holes, setting off a sparring match with Formosa through the middle game that saw the two longtime friends seesaw back and forth on the leaderboard.

After Wang took a lead with a birdie on 6, however, he went into a brief mini slump, one brought on by the thought of a big day admittedly fracturing his concentration. Formosa responded with back-to-back birdies on 8 and 9 to retake the lead. That’s what snapped Formosa back to reality.

“I think I said something like: ‘This man is putting up a really good fight today,’” Wang said.

Then came the big finish, a spirited upturn that saw Wang tie it with a birdie on 11. It stayed dead even until 15, when Formosa at last flinched, and Wang went on a run of epic proportions. He knocked in a 30-footer for birdie on 15 as Formosa bogeyed. He birdied the next two holes, including a 280 blast to the green on 17 that set up an eagle putt, only to see him miss and settle for birdie.

On 18, however, Wang scored the eagle to make history.

“The back nine started off a lot slower, but toward the ending stretch ... it was just unconscious,” Wang said. “I didn’t have to really think about my swing, it was just step up and take a shot ... and I think it worked out.”

In the second year of the Junior Club Championship, Wang said he enjoyed a marked improvement over last year.

“Last year I don’t even remember what I placed, but I know it was not great,” Wang said.

Wang took first place with a two-day total of 133, 7 strokes ahead of Formosa’s second-place 140. Affrunti placed third with a 148, Cole Weyer fourth with 158, and Noah Gross fifth with 162.

As for Wang’s tee shot Monday, the one just after asking a phone caller to hold, he quickly returned to the call to boast that even a day after his epic at PGCC, he was still in the zone.

“Fairway — perfect,” Wang said. “Right down the middle, as always.”