Collegiate competition returned to the rolling hills of the Hanover Country Club this weekend as the men's golf team opened its fall season with a strong second place finish out of the 13 team field at the Dartmouth Invitational.
Dartmouth entered two five-man teams in this year's invite. Dartmouth's first team, named the "Green team," was comprised of co-Captain Steve Sugarman '97 (75-73), co-Captain MacKenzie Hurd '98 (71-71), Jay Lavender '97 (75-74), Jon Heaton '99 (79-72) and Chris Welty '00 (78-74).
The Green team came on strong Sunday and finished with a score of 591, only six shots behind tournament champions -- Yale.
Army's Jimmy Lee took first place individually with a two day score of 69-72. Though Hurd entered Sunday in second place, a double bogey on the last hole of play dropped him back to a fifth place finish.
Sugarman and Lavender finished 10th and 12th respectively. Despite his strong performance, newcomer Welty confessed he was glad to get it over with.
After Saturday, five teams were within three stokes of the lead.
"We knew we had to play well [Sunday], and we did." Hurd said.
Sugarman agreed. "We're proud of the way we played today."
No doubt, the results could have been even more favorable had last year's All-Ivy and team most valuable player, Jay Danzi '98 had been in the line up. Danzi's broken wrist forced him to watch from the sidelines this weekend as he assisted Coach Bill Johnson with instruction.
Yet, Danzi noted that the two days of coaching provided valuable perspectives that he hopes will aid his game when he returns at the end of the fall.
Danzi's clubs, however, still found a place to help the Big Green -- in the hands of Carlos Gonzalez '99. Gonzalez's clubs were accidently shipped with the women's team to Yale. Without so much as a practice hole, Gonzalez, still bothered by a knee injury, took to the course with Danzi's clubs and managed to post an impressive 77-79.
Gonzalez was part of Dartmouth's second team, named the "White team."
With a tremendous effort from Steve Brown '99 (79-75) and Gonzalez, the "White" team, also including Dave Kantrovitz '97 (87-76), Zack Smith '99 (82-81),and Nick Werner '00 (81-86), took 11th place with a combined 630.
"It was a solid performance that could have been even better," Gonzalez said.
Many players stated that the scores would have been even lower if the putting had been better. While some cited the rain that the course received Saturday night, Johnson suggested to his players that they relax more on the greens and just let things happen.
But overall, Johnson was pleased with the team's showing this weekend.
"Yale had to play very well to nose us out," he said.
Johnson cited the team's depth as a great asset for future competition. Hurd as well believes the team now "has a good building block to work from."
This Thursday the team heads to the ECAC qualifier in New Hampshire, and come Sunday the Big Green will head to Massachusetts for the annual Toski Invitational.
"I'm confident going into the ECAC and Toski," Johnson said. "There's always a good field at Toski, but we have the ability to contend."
