Neal Shipley of Ohio State led the Buckeyes to a season-opening win at the loaded Southwestern Invitational Collegiate at North Ranch Country Club in Westlake Village, Calif.

Shipley shot 12-under for the tournament to win by one shot over Taehoon Song of Washington, who finished at 11-under. Song shot a final round 7-under 64 to propel up the leaderboard. Shipley shot a final round 6-under 65 to hold off Song. 

Shipley started the day at 6-under and four shots back of the lead and was 1-under on the day as he made the turn to the final nine, but a flurry of birdies on the final nine, including a birdie streak on Holes No. 13 through 16 gave him the individual win. He made two pars on Holes No. 17 and 18 with the slim one-shot lead to secure the victory. 

Shipley shot progressively better rounds of 69-67-65.

Tyran Sanders of Texas Tech and Caden Fioroni of UNLV, the first-round leader, finished T3 at 10-under. 

2023 Latin America Amateur Champion Santiago De La Fuente of Houston finished in solo fifth place at 9-under.

Second-round leader Tucker Clark of Colorado struggled in the final round, shooting 3-over 74 to fall to T6 at 7-under, along with Tyler Kowack of San Diego State. Omar Morales of UCLA finished in solo eighth place at 6-under. 

For Ohio State, freshman Jack Vojtko impressed in his first collegiate start, finishing T17 at 2-under, and Maxwell Moldovan finished in 22nd place at 1-under. Adam Wallin finished in T32 at 3-over, and Jackson Chandler finished T38 at 4-over.

The Buckeyes finished at 13-under and won the team title by just one shot over UNLV, who finished at 12-under. 

UCLA and San Diego State finished T3 at 9-under, Washington finished in solo fifth place at 8-under, and Texas Tech and Colorado finished T6 at 7-under.

Both Shipley and Moldovan were alternates on the 2023 Walker Cup team, and Shipley was the runner-up at the 2023 U.S. Amateur, losing to Nick Dunlap, who recently turned pro, in the final match. 

The Southwestern Intercollegiate was started by USC in 1978. The schools co-hosted the event in 2013 and 2014. After a year without a tournament, Pepperdine then took over hosting duties in 2016 and merged it with its own home tournament, which had been played at a few different sites.

Past winners include Sahith Theegala of Pepperdine (2017, 2020) and David Puig of Arizona State (2021, 2022), have both won twice. Other individual winners include Justin Suh of USC, Maverick McNealy of Stanford, Patrick Cantlay of UCLA, Anthony Kim of Oklahoma, and in 1996, Tiger Woods won the tournament while he was at Stanford.