I sat down with captain Davis Mullany '11 and Teddy Overton '12 Saturday after the first day of the Dartmouth Invitational to talk about Dartmouth golf.
A lot of people are familiar with how professional golf works. How does on differ in format in college?
DM: The format is you have five guys play, you pick your best five guys, and you take the best four scores out of the five, and then you add them up. We play a lot of different schools at one time, not just one. Today [at the Dartmouth Invitational] there were about 10 schools at this tournament.
What are your guys' expectations for the upcoming year?
DM: Last year was a little bit of a building year. We got Pete [Williamson '12] as a freshman and he had a great year. James Pleat ['13] is a new freshman and he's in second place right now. He played really well today.
TO: We're looking to step up our game this season.
Being on the golf team allows you to play a lot of great courses, like when you guys played at Bethpage in Long Island, N.Y., last weekend. What's that like?
TO: It's an awesome experience. You don't get to play great courses for free, especially not in a tournament setting.
Hanover isn't necessarily the best climate for golf. How do you deal with playing here?
TO: Hanover is a lot different from most places you get to play in the season. It's a good 10 to 15 degrees colder than other places. It was probably 35 degrees this morning and really foggy. So there were pretty brutal conditions, and it caused the score to go higher. That said, we're pretty used to it, and it adds to home-course advantage.
DM: It makes it tough playing out of Hanover because the course isn't open long. It closes early in the fall, and in the early spring the course isn't open, so you don't get a lot of time to practice. It is a bigger home advantage, though, because we are more used to playing in the cold.
How are you guys still able to attract top talent to play golf so far up north?
DM: We have a great coach, and a really great practice facility.
TO: Also we have great guys, and it's really hard for people not to enjoy spending their recruiting trips up here.
DM: A lot of kids like having the course right here on campus. At a lot of other schools, the golf teams use private courses and they can't play on them every day. Here we can play whenever we want, and as I said, the practice facility is really nice, so that helps.
Do you guys have anything you do during the bad weather months to keep your games in shape?
TO: During the fall, we travel a lot, and that keeps our season going.
DM: We also hit balls at this range in West Lebanon.
TO: A couple of parents on the team are helping to fund a new putting green and practice facility in Leverone [Fieldhouse] so we can practice in the winter. They are building a couple of hitting bays and a green so that will be good for the cold weather.
How does battling for the top playing spots affect competition and chemistry within the team?
TO: Well, over the last five years, our team has really built a competitive program. Since we got our new coach, Rich Parker, he's made recruiting one of the most important things on his agenda so we have a basic three guys that pretty much travel every tournament. For the most part, [Williamson], [Mullany] and [Pleat] travel consistently, and for the No. 4 and No. 5 spot, it's competitive with most of the other guys on the team.
What do you guys have to accomplish this year to make it a success for Dartmouth golf?
TO: I think we've gotten to the point of being so competitive in the Ivy League that ultimately the way we can use this year as a complete success is if we win the Ivy League tournament this spring. We came in third last year, but with our new freshmen, everyone thinks we can do it, and we think we're going to be very competitive in the league.
