Strong showing at state

“Of the six teams at the finals, all the teams there were (from schools with enrollments of) 2,500 (students),” said Menlo co-head coach Gary Missel. “[Menlo is] 500. We we’re definitely David versus Goliath.”

Ting said he and his teammates — senior John Weingart, juniors Charlie Hsieh and Seth Pope, sophomore Kripa Dharan and freshman Jeremy Yun — were talking before the round about the discrepancy between the sizes of the schools. He said the team came to one conclusion before the final round of the high school season.

“We were just out there to have fun,” Ting said. “It was certainly a special day.”

Ting led the way for the Knights, just as he has for most of his four years at the Atherton school. He got off to an inauspicious start, however, bogeying his first hole of the round, the par-4 10th. He recorded seven straight pars before a birdie on the 18th put him at 1-under at the turn.

It didn’t take long for Ting to gain two more strokes. After a par on No. 1, he had back-to-back birdies on No. 2 and No. 3 to move to 3-under for the day.

It would be as low as he would get as he gave back two strokes over the next two holes, coming away with bogeys on No. 4 and No. 5 to fall back to 1-under.

Ting stabilized his round with four straight pars before a birdie on nine gave him a 2-under for the day.

“Today was more of a grind-it-out round,” Ting said.

He said the course was a bit tight, but still provided plenty of opportunities to shoot at pins.

“I didn’t have my best ball-striking day. I missed a lot of fairways,” Ting said. “I was pretty happy grinding out the score I did.”

Ting finished tied for second place with Torrey Pines’ Caden Fioroni. Crean Lutheran’s Tyler Guo captured the state title with a 3-under 68.

Missel said Ting finished his round with a flourish, which proved to be crucial to the Knights’ final team score.

“What Max failed to tell you, on the last shot of his high school career, he holed out a (greenside) bunker shot for birdie,” Missel said. “It was one of the most important strokes (of the round), as we finished (in third) by only two strokes.”

If Ting’s performance was not too surprising — he finished second at the Central Coast Section championships and 20th at the Northern California tournament — neither was the performance by the rest of the Knights’ squad, which featured four of the five golfers posting sub-80 rounds at the state tournament.

They finished second at CCS behind St. Francis-Mountain View and second behind De La Salle at the Nor Cal tournament. The Knights finished ahead of both at the state tournament.

Dharan came in with a 3-over 74 for one of his best rounds of the season, while Hsieh and Yun both posted 79s. Pope rounded out the team scoring with an 81.

Menlo’s team score of 382 was two strokes better than fourth-place finisher St. Francis. Torrey Pines captured the team championship with a five-golfer score of 358, a combined three shots over par. Palm Desert was one shot back with a 359.

“We were shooting good scores all year. I hadn’t been part of a team that had scores as good as they were,” Ting said. “Four, five, six guys played really well throughout the post season, which is what you need (to finish high in the team standings).

“I would say it was definitely an entire team effort, all six guys (contributing to the third-place finish).”