The men's and women's golf teams head to Long Island this weekend looking to capture the first ever Ivy League title for either team. Play begins on Saturday and continues through Sunday in both team and individual competition.
Women's Golf:
Two weeks after pulling off a big win over Ivy rival Princeton in the Boston College Lady Eagle Invitational, the women's golf team will take to the links again in the Ivy Championship meet at Bethpage State Park on Long Island. The linksters are hoping for a repeat of their successful performance in the Lady Eagle meet, in which they nabbed third place, topping the fourth-place Tigers by seven strokes.
Last year was the first one in which the Ivy League held a championship meet for the women, but the inaugural event was marred by inclement weather. Yale won the rain and snow-shortened tournament with a score of 655. Princeton was the runner-up, shooting 693. Dartmouth finished one painful stroke behind Princeton with 694.
Precipitation should not figure into the equation this year if the sun continues to shine as it has over most of the Northeast all week long.
Samantha Sommers '99 said that she was looking forward to playing the Bethany Page course.
"It is a very nice course, but the greens are very difficult to read because they tend to break a lot when they appear to be straight putts," she said.
If the Big Green are to be successful in the Ivy meet this weekend they will have to work through the fact that they still have not had a lot of time to practice yet this season. The Hanover Country Club is expected to open this Saturday, a bit too late for the team.
"Most of the team was able to fit in nine holes one day," Lauren Epstein '00 said of her team's limited practice time. "The other days we could only hit balls."
Courtney Dill '99 voiced optimism about the weekend tournament.
"I think we're all looking forward to this weekend and the chance to see how we stand among the Ivies," Dill said. "If we play well, I think we have a great chance of finishing in the top two."
"Yale is probably favored to win at this point," Cara Mathews '99 said. "All we can do is focus on our own games."
The women left for New York Thursday morning in order to play a practice round before the meet begins.
Men's Golf:
For those who compete, the "Ivies" is the tournament to win.
"I'm really looking forward to this event," Coach Bill Johnson said. In agreement with Johnson were all of his players: co-Captains Mackenzie Hurd '98 and Jay Danzi '98, John Heaton '99 and Chris Welty '00. Joining those players will be freshman Kyle Song.
On paper, Penn--who has had the luxury of playing all winter--is this weekend's favorite, and Dartmouth is set to place fourth. But, such predictions mean little to the golfers in green.
Modifying the words of last weekend's unexpected Masters Champion, Mark O'Meara, Johnson said, "I hope they get our name right on the trophy, because we're coming out of nowhere I think we're going to surprise a lot of people."
"Our guys are all strong hitters. In fact, this is probably the strongest team I've ever taken to the Ivies," Johnson contends. "Our success depends on our resiliency; if we can find out early what's working for us we're going to be in the hunt. We may not win it but we'll be in the hunt."
According to Hurd, who recently accepted a prestigious fellowship with the USGA Foundation, the team is "relaxed and comfortable."
"Coach has been stressing the process rather than the outcome, so we're just going to go in there and do what we know we can do," Hurd said.
Both co-captains spoke of the impressive level of individual effort shown by all team members in preparation for this tournament, especially Heaton and Song.
"MacKenzie and I have told Coach for years that we'd get him a ring, and we know this is the best opportunity we've ever had to do it," Danzi said.
Seeing that the traditional Ivies' venue, the Bethpage Black Course, is currently under renovation for the 2002 U.S. Open, the men's squad and their counterparts will play the Red Course this afternoon instead.
Though disappointed not to play the Black Course, Danzi noted the parity it would bring to the field.
"At least this way the field is even because nobody has played the course," he said.
