Liberty's Duncan pulls out in front of stacked KHSD golf field with career-best day

Clay Cunningham, The Bakersfield Californian
·2 min read

May 11—Dissatisfied with his early season performance, Adam Duncan quickly discovered that Monday was going to be different.

Shooting even par through his first three holes, Duncan put himself in position to sink a 15-foot eagle putt on the par-five 15th of the North Kern Golf Course. And the second he saw the putt drop in the cup, the Liberty senior says his whole demeanor changed.

"I knew it was going to be good after that," he said.

Duncan added another eagle putt on hole No. 1 and went on to shoot a career-best 65, leading Liberty to a winning score of 371 at the fourth Kern High School District boys golf match of the season.

Duncan's seven-under par score was six shots ahead of runner-up David Chhuon Chan of Stockdale, who led the Mustangs to a second-place finish of 386.

Duncan, who'd previously shot 66 three times, was on pace to shatter his previous personal record at points Monday, seeing his score drop as low as nine-under.

"To be honest, I was shaking when I got to that point," he said. "I had never been that low."

Though he'd leveled out a bit by day's end, he still concluded the match with his best score. More importantly, he led the Patriots to their second straight win after they'd finished second to Stockdale at the first two KHSD matches of the season.

The performance also dropped his average to a district-best 71, an achievement reached despite Duncan's own feelings of dissatisfaction with his game prior to Monday.

"I honestly haven't been having as much success as I wanted," he said. "I was struggling with my driver. Then yesterday, I crushed every drive and drained a lot of putts too. When you're driving good and draining putts, it starts to click after that."

BATTLE AT THE TOP: Duncan isn't the only local golfer finding success, as seven from Kern County are currently shooting in the 70s.

While that list is populated with Liberty and Stockdale golfers, it's actually Highland's Madhav Raja who is nipping at Duncan's heels with an average of 72. Raja placed sixth with a score of 73 on Monday.

Chhuon-Chan is right behind at 73, while Mustang teammate Akhil Gorla is averaging 74. Liberty's Jacob Borda is averaging 75, Foothill's Braden Guerrero is at 77 with Cameron Keene of Stockdale shooting 79.