W. Golf Takes Fourth at Lady Eagle Invitational, Men Fight Cold at Yale

To those of us here in Cambridge, this past weekend was unseasonably cool and reminiscent more of crisp, autumn days than of sunny April ones. For the Harvard golf teams, though, the chilly conditions meant something entirely different—swinging through layers upon layers of clothing.

The Crimson men also had to contend with subfreezing, predawn temperatures, frozen greens and falling snow in New Haven, Conn. There, Harvard finished twelfth out of 24 teams at the Yale Invitational, which was won by the host school.

Meanwhile, a young women’s team coped better with the weather at Oyster Harbor Golf Course in Osterville, Mass., placing fourth out of 14 teams at the Boston College-sponsored Lady Eagle Invitational, 50 shots behind champion Brown.

Men

The men’s team, having recently come back from a trip to Arizona, faced a rude awakening upon its return.

“It’s tough to bring the sun game back to the Northeast and worry about hitting rocks with your clubs,” sophomore Andrew Klein said.

Despite the weather, Klein was Harvard’s lowest scorer.

“It’s not golf in the conventional sense,” Klein said. “Conditions were tough. Then again, everyone had to face the same thing.”

Still, Klein managed to record a seven-over par 77 on Saturday, leaving him tied for sixth. Unfortunately, a mental mistake on the ninth hole on Sunday left Klein with a second-round 81, dropping him into a tie for 26th place.

“An untimely chunk-sklaff cost me,” Klein said.

To “sklaff” on a golf course means to mis-hit the ball off the clubface so that it only dribbles a few yards.

Complementing Klein, captain Andrew Malcolm struggled Saturday through 43 putts on the bumpy greens of The Course at Yale to an 81, but recovered Sunday to card a 77 to finish tied for 32nd place.

Freshman Matt Amis, playing in his first spring tournament, was more consistent, scoring 82-84-166 en route to tying for 56th place.

Classmate Cliff Ryan, competing in his first collegiate tournament, struggled to a first-round 87, but came back Sunday with an 82 to finish three shots behind Amis, tied for 69th.

As a team, though, the Crimson was reluctant to use the weather as an excuse. Instead, the players expressed disappointment with their own play.

“It was difficult in a lot of ways,” Klein acknowledged. “That being said, I still think we could have played better as a team.”

“We were certainly hoping to get out to a better start to the spring season than we did,” Malcolm added.

This weekend, the men will have a chance to recover when they hit the links at the New England Division 1 Championships in Providence, R.I.

Women

Sophomore Merry Chiampa, one of the elder stateswomen on Harvard’s extremely young squad, returned from a one-year hiatus and hardly missed a beat on Saturday, shooting a 77 to put herself in a three-way tie for first. Chiampa’s performance also staked the team to second place at the end of the first day.

However, Chiampa struggled slightly with her short game on Sunday as an 85 dropped her into fourth place.

“There’s always the temptation to get out there and compare yourself to the first day, especially if you played well,” Chiampa said. “[But] it was my first competitive tournament in a while, so I was just looking to see if I could hit the ball.”

Chiampa missed the fall season for unspecified team reasons.

The rest of the Crimson also faltered slightly on the second day of the tournament, but Harvard still eclipsed its performance last year by over forty strokes.

Behind Chiampa, classmate Elisa Schaar tied for eleventh with rounds of 86 and 84, while freshman Carrie Baizer shot 86-86-171 while still trying to break in a new set of clubs.

“It was consistent, but it wasn’t consistently good,’ Baizer said. “None of us really played as well as we would want to.”

The Crimson women will have to wait two weeks for a chance to improve on their performance, until the Ivy Championships at Trenton Country Club Apr. 20th and 21st.

Hopefully, with the lower latitude and later date, the weather will have warmed up significantly by then. If not, the 36 holes each woman will play on the first day of the championships could prove even more uncomfortable than those of this past weekend.