This weekend Dartmouth's men's and women's golf teams both put in largely successful efforts, as the men claimed fifth in the 16-team field at the Cornell Invitational and the women finished tenth at the Yale Women's Fall Intercollegiate tournament. Both tournaments concluded Sunday.
The men's team has been particularly impressive this fall. The squad has improved notably due to the development of several key players this summer, including team captain Jamie Wallace '08, Dave Putney '10 and Alexander Abate '09. In addition, freshman star recruit Davis Mullany '11 has bolstered the starting lineup.
Last weekend, the men's team earned a victory at the Dartmouth Invitational as Mullany started his Dartmouth career off with a bang by winning the overall individual title. Mullany is the first male golfer to win the title in six years.
The women have had a moderate start to their season. This year the team is led by veteran players Lauren Strickler '09, Tory Sheppard '09 and Captain Elizabeth Dupuy '08. The team has also recieved marked contributions from Katie Gulemi '11 and Sunny Zhang '10.
In its first tournament of the season, the Big Green women finished sixth out of eight teams in the Lady Herd Invitational at Marshall University. The team rebounded by placing third out of 14 teams on its home course at the Dartmouth Invitational.
In the last two weeks, the women played in the Princeton and Yale invitational tournaments, finishing ninth and 10th respectively out of fields of 15 teams.
Despite the lower finishes, Captain Elizabeth Dupuy '08 remains positive about the season.
"The team is younger this year than it has been in the past, and I feel like the program is generally getting stronger," she said. "With each tournament that we play in I can see general improvement and maturity."
This weekend at Cornell, the Big Green men finished fifth of 16 teams, falling by 16 strokes to the tournament champion, St. Bonaventure University. Mullany again was Dartmouth's top finisher, tying for 14th overall individually.
However, Wallace was not particularly disappointed by the team's result.
"We did not have our A game this weekend but it shows that we are a better team than we have been recently by our ability to still have a respectable finish," Wallace said.
Mullany agreed. "We played pretty well this weekend, but did not fulfill our team's potential," he said. "Nonetheless, we kept it together for a solid finish."
The team looks forward to next weekend's Yale Invitational where it expects to face some of its stiffest competition this season.
Next weekend, the women's team also expects tough competition as it heads to the College of William and Mary for the ECAC Championships.
