Pepperdine tops bunched leaderboard at The Prestige

While some of the faces have changed this year in Malibu, make no mistake the retooled Pepperdine Waves still have plenty of firepower in its lineup, as evidenced by its opening round Monday at The Prestige being held in La Quinta, Calif.

Senior William Mouw's opening round 6-under 65 on the par-71 Greg Norman Course at PGA West carried the Waves to the top of the leaderboard after the opening round of The Prestige, which features four of the top-20 teams in the nation.

At 8-under, the Waves hold a one-shot lead over No. 5 Stanford, which rode Michael Thorbjornsen's 5-under 66 to a 7-under team score of 277 on Monday.

TCU (-5), No. 6 Texas Tech (-4), Loyola Marymount (-3) and No. 20 Baylor (-3) round out the top-five.

Mouw, a 2021 Walker Cup team member who won the Trans-Miss Amateur last summer, had five birdies and an eagle on his card to offset his lone bogey of the day en route to his 6-under 65, which was just one-stroke shy of his career low round.

The Waves also benefitted from a 2-under 69 by Sam Choi, who transferred to Pepperdine as a graduate student after spending four years at New Mexico.

Thorbjornsen, AmateurGolf.com's 2022 Player of the Year, birdied eight of the first 12 holes on the day en route to an opening round 66, which leaves him tied for second with Texas Tech's Tyran Snyders. The Cardinal also counted 1-under rounds of 70 by Karl Villips and Ethan Ng and an even par 71 by Alex Yang.

Ludvig Aberg of Texas Tech, the top-ranked amateur in the world, is just two off the pace after an opening round 67 left him tied for fourth place with TCU's Maxence Giboudot.