At some point during Friday's downpour on the Bethpage Golf Course on Long Island, the sensation of Ivy Championship rings slipped from the hands of the golfers in green. As was expected, the University of Pennsylvania (599) finished two strokes ahead of defending champ Yale (601) and took home its first Ivy League team championship ever.
Dartmouth, predicted to take fourth, placed sixth overall. On Friday, after a late starting time and two rain delays in their first nine holes, the cold and distracted Dartmouth squad posted a 325--far behind leaders Pennsylvania (303) and Columbia (305).
"None of us handled the disruptions well," Chris Welty '00 said. "We basically shot ourselves out of the championship during the first round."
"The bad weather drowned any hopes we had of a championship because it threw us off our routines," co-Captain Jay Danzi '98 said.
Although he acknowledged the poor weather and late tee-time, Coach Johnson said he felt that his team was to focused on making the big shots and came out uptight.
"We just tried to be too careful out on the golf course," Johnson said.
After expressing this belief to his team, the Big Green managed an impressive second-round score of 303, a score that would have been good enough for a share of the lead during Friday's first round. However, the effort simply came too late and they remained in sixth place.
"After the first round, Coach Johnson told us to just go out the let the ball fly and not really worry too much about where it ended up," Welty said. "I know that helped me, and I think the entire team had a lot more fun because we knew we were out of the race for the title and consequently, there was no pressure. I'm disappointed with our finish, but the season's not over yet."
Both Danzi (81-75) and freshman Kyle Song (80-76) finished with aggregate scores of 156. One shot back was Welty (83-74), with a 157. Senior co-Captain Mackenzie Hurd (84-78) finished at 162, just one stroke ahead of junior Jon Heaton's 163 (81-82).
The team is back on the road Wednesday for the New England Championships in Rhode Island, where Johnson said he hopes his team can "shoot in the 305 range and see what happens."
"Coach (Johnson) is such an amazing mental coach, and his lessons after the first round really sunk in," Danzi said. "I'm confident that we can turn it around at the New England Championships."
