The men’s and women’s golf teams began the spring season last weekend in the greater New York metro area. The women finished fourth out of the 12 teams competing in the Vassar College Invitational and the men placed third out of the 13 teams competing in the Manhattanville/NYU Spring Invitational.
The women teed off on Saturday in Poughkeepsie at the Casperkill Golf Club in their first match since placing third at Wesleyan’s Ann S. Batchelder Invitational in October and finished the weekend in fourth with a score of 661. Ithaca College edged the Panthers for third with a score of 657, while NYU finished in second, 15 strokes behind Ithaca (632). Williams won with a score of 617.
The top finishers for the Panthers on the women’s side were Jordan Glatt ’15 and Monica Chow ’16, who both shot 161’s for the weekend. Glatt was the Panther with the best round for on day one with a 79, while Chow had the fifth-lowest score in the tournament on the second day of play, shooting a 78. The two finished the tournament tied for 12th place.
Though the Panthers finished 44 strokes off of the lead, they believe they are building momentum that will carry them into next weekend’s Jack Leaman Tounament hosted by Amherst.
The Panthers’ fourth-place finish offers a benchmark for the team to improve, and “it was great to begin competing again, as we haven’t had a tournament since the fall,” Glatt said.
“Even though we haven’t been able to utilize the golf course facilities much in the past couple weeks due to the weather, I was very proud of our team’s performance. The saturation and wind provided significant obstacles, but the team handled the conditions well. It has been a long winter, so we were excited to get outside,” Glatt said.
The men’s squad entered the Manhattanville/NYU Spring Invitational coming off of a first place finish at the Sunshine invitational in Port St. Lucie, Florida.
“The win in Florida provided our team with a great deal of confidence, but at the same time, we knew that the transition back to spring Northeast golf would pose some challenges,” Fitz Bowen ’17 said.
Eric Laorr ’15 was the top Panther last weekend, finishing second among the 74 individuals who competed. He carded a pair of 74’s to finish with a 148, only three strokes back of the top individual, Bayard Geeslin from the Hamilton squad.
Tying for 15th-place was Charlie Garcia ’15, who shot a 79 on day one and took three strokes off his day two score to finish with a 155. John Louie ’15 and Bowen shot 158’s. Louie came in with a 78 on day one and an 80 on day two.
Bowen, who had shot a 72 at the Sunshine Invitational, shot back-to-back rounds of 79. Rounding out the team’s scorers were Bennett Doherty ’18 (164), and Rodrigo Andrade ’17 who (166).
Reflecting on the team’s performance last weekend, Bowen said, “We were only able to hit outdoors on two occasions prior to NYU’s tournament; on days when the weather was not cooperative we resorted to hitting into nets in Nelson. Surely, this forced us all to feel unprepared for the tournament in some way, but we had to make the best of what we had.”
However, Bowen added that the team is “looking at last weekend as a stepping stone for the next few weeks. Each day, our goal is to get a little bit better. If we can do that, then our expectations will definitely be met.”
The Panther men will tee off again at the Ralph Myhre Golf Course next weekend for the NESCAC tournament.
