A young Dartmouth women's golf team finished an impressive fourth in a field of 13 teams at the Dartmouth Invitational at the Hanover Country Club On Sunday.
Princeton's Mary Moan edged her teammate Laura Gilmore by one shot for medalist honors. Moan shot a blistering 149. Boston College's Katie Shields was in fifth place after the first round but jumped to third place after the second round.
Hartford's Shalini Malik had the shot of the weekend with a hole in one on the twelfth hole.
Behind the play of Moan and Gilmore the Princeton Tigers maintained their relative monopoly on the top spot in tournament action as they finished with a score of 635, seven strokes ahead of runner-up Yale. Hartford's 656 bested Dartmouth's 661 for the third spot. Rutgers finished fifth.
Samantha Sommers '99 led the Big Green in individual scoring with a seventh place finish as she shot 84-77 (161). Newcomer Lauren Epstein '00 had little trouble adjusting to the pressures of collegiate golf and finished only a stroke behind Sommers, firing a score of (84-77)162. Teammate Joanna Whitley '97 trailed Epstein by two, shooting 79-85 (164).
Coach Izzy Johnson was very pleased with her team's effort, praising both the Big Green's concentration and management of the difficult course.
"Our best finish last year was fourth in our last tournament, and we started this year off with another fourth place finish," said Johnson.
Epstein noted that the geographic nuances of the Hanover course can wreak havoc on a golfer who isn't thinking about the next shot.
"You can't play stupid. You have to make smart shots and play your own game," Johnson said. "You can't look at the club someone else is using and try it yourself or you will get in big trouble."
Epstein also pointed out that the numerous hills make shots especially tough to judge.
"You are given the yardage for a hole but you have to know how long a hole plays," Epstein said. "You really have to know where to place it to get the right roll. You never know, a 150-yard hole can turn out to play as 165 yards or 130 yards."
Jessica Hughes agreed with Epstein's assessment of the course and said she feels her team's familiarity with the course may have been a bonus to their confident play.
"It has a lot of tricky holes," Hughes said. "The 11th hole is like target golfing. If you hadn't played there before you could be dead."
Another encouraging point of the weekend for the Big Green may have been that they finished ahead of Rutgers. Rutgers and Princeton traditionally battle for first place in any tournament they enter, and both usually beat Dartmouth. Not this time.
"We always finished fifth last year because Rutgers would always beat us," Sommers said. "It was great to beat them."
