The Dartmouth men's golf team finished ninth out of 15 teams in the Macdonald Cup this weekend at the Yale Invitational in New Haven, Conn. For the tournament, the Big Green shot a combined score of 905, putting them 45 shots behind tournament winner University of Oklahoma.
Pete Williamson '12 led the Dartmouth squad with a strong performance, finishing in a tie for 12th place in the individual standings.
On the opening day of play, Rob Henley '09 recorded a team-best four-over-par 74 in the opening round. At the end of the day's second round, Williamson and Davis Mullany '11 both tallied a one-over-par 71.
"[The weekend] was interesting. I had not played the course before, and it was definitely a challenge," Williamson said. "The course is definitely unique in that it is very undulating, and so it has a lot of blind shots where you just don't really know where you're hitting to."
After the first 36 holes, Williamson led the Big Green with a 147, seven over par, which put him in 23rd place going into Sunday's final round. Mullany trailed just two shots behind his teammate, with a stroke-count of 149 holding him in 29th place.
The rest of the squad sat farther back in the standings, with Dave Putney '10 in 32nd place with a 150, and Alex Abate '09 following with a 153. Henley brought up the rear, his strong first round eclipsed by struggles in the second round, shooting a 15-over-par 85.
Sunday's final round saw more of the same for the Big Green, as Williamson again put up the team's best score for the round with a two-over 72. Mullany finished his final round with a 77, followed by Henley's 80. Putney and Abate tallied a stroke count of 82 and 83 for the last round, respectively.
"We went into it feeling okay. [We] just didn't really score very well, and we just couldn't really eliminate the big numbers," Williamson said. "A lot of the silly errors that can happen in golf just added up to make it rough for us."
The weather also contributed to high scores -- the rain falling in New Haven on Sunday made the course more challenging.
"It started raining in the morning and it was miserable," Williamson said. "It got a little better in the afternoon, but by then the damage had been done for a lot of people. We were excited about the rain at first because bad weather is usually the neutralizer for Dartmouth golf, but we just did not play that well. Normally we are better at playing in the rain than other schools are, and we embrace the rain."
But the bad weather couldn't not stop Jason Thresher of Bryant University, who won the tournament as the only golfer to finish under par. He tallied a final stroke score of 208, or two under par for the weekend. Playing to a one-over-par 71 on the first round, Thresher improved on the next 18 holes to record a two-under-par 68. He then clinched the title with a final-round score of 69, one-under par.
The tournament runner-up was Liam Logan of Oklahoma, who shot an even-par 210 for the weekend, with individual round scores of 73, 67 and 70.
Fellow Sooner Riley Pumphrey enjoyed the best single round of the tournament, shooting a 65 during Saturday morning's opening round. Pumphrey finished the tournament in fifth place after going five-over-par and four-over-par in the second and third rounds, respectively.
In team scoring, Oklahoma carded an 860 to edge out the runner-up and host, Yale, by an eight-shot margin.
Rounding out the rest of the top five teams were Bryant, which finished with a stroke-count of 871, Sacred Heart University with 872 and Binghamton University at 889.
The Big Green finished five strokes behind the eighth-place squad from the University of Connecticut.
"We're trying to improve right now, and the scores don't show it this week, but we're making progress," Williamson said.
Up next for the Dartmouth is the New England Intercollegiate Golf Association championships beginning on Monday, Oct. 20.
