Stanford sophomore Mari Chun is stretched to the limit, balancing an All-America golf season and mechanical engineering courses.

This season, her shoulder needed it.

Chun, who required pre-round stretching to loosen up her shoulder enough to swing comfortably, earned National Golf Coaches Association All-America second-team honors.

Chun, a 2005 Kamehameha Schools graduate, tied for 17th (76-78-71-74—299) at the NCAA Championships last week. After an uncharacteristic start, "(Chun) stayed really patient and made some adjustments in her routine," Stanford coach Caroline O'Connor said. "She came out Thursday morning and you just saw that focus and determination in her eyes."

Chun made the NGCA All-West region squad and was an all-Pacific 10 Conference second-team pick. Chun had third-place finishes at the Pac-10 Championships and NCAA West Regional.

She also won the Edean Ihlanfeldt Invitational and was second at the PING/ASU Invitational.

Chun battled injuries the past two years after being injury-free throughout her youth and high school competition.

This past fall it was her left shoulder because of "wear and tear over time."

"It would start pulling on my swing," Chun said. It required treatment before each round — to be heated and worked on, or "I wouldn't be able to swing freely."

And the way Chun swings only makes it tighter. It takes much-needed rest, and more treatment, to heal.

"It made me a stronger person knowing I could come back from injuries that were unexpected and still compete," Chun said. "It was neat to see despite injuries, I was able to pull out the outcome that I wanted."

In her freshman year she sprained her right ankle and had tendinitis in her left heel.

"I couldn't really push off or rotate," Chun recalled.

It was a "rough transition" for Chun, being away from friends and family and dealing with an injury for the first time, but the "Stanford community here is great. My friends made it easier to deal with it."

After a terrific 2004, when she won the Callaway Junior World and U.S. Junior Girls Championship, O'Connor knew Chun would be a success on the collegiate level as well.

"She's one of the best putters I had seen, and she certainly lived up to that (at Stanford)," O'Connor said.

O'Connor expects Chun to continue her "exceptional play" over the next two seasons, but possibly with more responsibilities.

"I had two fantastic captains (Jennifer Tangtiphaiboontana and Lauren Todd), the best we've ever had, and hopefully she's learned from them about how to lead also," O'Connor said.

In the past two years, O'Connor said Chun has "really come out of her shell.

"We're starting to see her sense of humor. We don't have any seniors on the team next year — bit of a rebuilding year — and we need her to be a catalyst."

After returning from the NCAA Championships in Daytona Beach, Fla., Chun was back to work, busy on a project for her mechanical engineering class. The busy part of the golf season falls just before the end of the quarter, June 14.

"It's hard for our student-athletes," O'Connor said. "We're one of few schools actually still in school during championships."

Chun said she "wouldn't trade it for anything. It will make me a better person in the end."

Chun is leaning toward majoring in Japanese language with a minor in mechanical engineering. Her mother, Lani, went to college in Japan and knows how to speak Japanese, and Chun said she always had a fascination with that.

Last semester she took an Aeronautics-Astronautics engineering class, an introductory seminar for sophomores. In it they discussed golf, including how air moves around a golf ball.

Things Chun knew innately from her years of playing golf were explained to her in engineering terms.

"I could apply a lot of it to (my golf game), in a sense," she said. "It's neat understanding why the ball moves a certain way."

Reach Leila Wai at lwai@honoluluadvertiser.com.